Contralateral
by psquare
Summary: Future!fic. Two years after the supposed Apocalypse, Sam and Dean Winchester reunite under unusual circumstances, to once again blur the lines between good and evil, life and death.
1. Prologue

_**A/N:**_ I've become so attached to _Supernatural_ lately it's unbelievable. That's why despite academics maintaining a vice-like grip on my schedule, this story simply _begged_ to be told.

Season 4 seems to be taking both boys – particularly Sam – to a scary destination, and this is my interpretation of things that could possibly happen. Unbeta'd, so please don't hesitate to point out inconsistencies or mistakes. Also, it's been over a year since I've actually written anything fictional, so this chapter'll start out things small and slow to work away the rustiness.

I don't own _Supernatural_ or any of its characters. Still hoping I can get Sam one day, though.

Do read and enjoy!

* * *

_**Contralateral**_

_June 6, 2011_

It was a dark, damp evening in Stratford, Wisconsin, and no amount of beaming weatherwomen or the prospect of a hot dinner and cool, dry bed could spare the irritation of moisture dripping down the sides of Rob Carlisle's face, entering his eyes, sticking his clothes to his skin. Once again swiping an already-wet handkerchief across his forehead, he fished out his car keys, itching to get into the air-conditioned haven of his brand new Honda.

The weather had gotten steadily worse, he reflected idly, sliding into the driver's seat. For weeks the humidity had gotten increasingly oppressive, stifling and suffocating, making even short walks in the open an exercise in endurance. It had gotten everybody worked up over the possibility of a storm, a big, nasty one, but the meteorologists seemed just confused, tossing out figures and readings and no definitive explanations as to why the weather was behaving the way it was. It had been weeks and weeks since the weather had gotten worse, and aside from the occasional freak electronic storm, the big 'un had not come calling yet.

_Taking the 'calm before a storm' a bit too far_, he thought, inserting the key into the ignition and reaching out to switch on the air-conditioner.

Which didn't work.

_What the hell? _Rob thought, his patience rapidly reaching the end of its tether. He had bought this car barely a month ago – tremendous investment, especially considering the New Depression and his suddenly none-too-rewarding job, Millie had definitely not been too happy – and for it start breaking down _this_ soon...

Just as Rob sat fiddling with the air-conditioner dial, repeatedly – and desperately – turning it on and off to no avail, the radio blared to life, static weaving in and out of loud rock music, the loud beats vibrating the car. Rob jerked back, startled.

_What the -- ?_

He reached out to open the door, a little worm of panic nestling in his gut, but as soon as he touched the handle, he convulsed like he'd received an electric shock, a strange feeling igniting every nerve ending, and he fell back on to the seat, body limp, eyes closed.

After what seemed like ages, Rob finally came to, to find that he was still sitting in his Honda, engine idling, the air-conditioner now finally on, radio still blaring.

... Except he _wasn't_.

Not really.

His hand reached out to turn off the radio off, and Rob actually _watched_ it, in a completely surreal way , he _watched_ his body move of its own accord, because he sure as hell wasn't telling it to do _anything_. He wanted to scream and startle and panic, but he couldn't, he couldn't really work up any feeling of his _own_ – all that he was getting from his body right then was a strange sort of peace, the warmth of accomplishment tinged by a vague apprehension. His hands settled on the steering wheel in a slow, deliberate motion, fingers curling firmly around the leather.

He wasn't doing any of this.

But those _were_ his hands, right? His hands, his car, his _body_... he felt like he was a passenger in his own body, and to call it disconcerting would've been seriously underestimating the kind of panic that Rob wanted to feel flowing through his veins like liquid iron.

He caught his eyes in the rearview mirror, and felt the muscles of his face stretch in a smile. He watched as a black film suddenly covered his eyes, every bit of it, pitch black and somehow gleaming as if lit up from within; a mirror of black night.

The desire for panic fled and the need for a deep-rooted apprehension took its place. But his body wasn't responding to him, it had been taken over by something else, but he was still _in_ there _some_where, wasn't he, he was still thinking for his own, and that had to count for _something_ –

"I'm sorry, Rob," he suddenly heard himself say. The blackness disappeared with a blink, like it was some sort of reptilian nictitating membrane, and Rob could feel old childhood nightmares ricochet within the small niche he could still call his own in his mind.

"I'm sorry," he heard himself repeat, his voice several shades deeper, as if pulled down by the invisible weights of some profound feeling. "I won't be in here for long. You'll be safe." The smile turned bitter. "And you won't remember a thing, I can promise you that."

Rob had now crossed all pretensions of coming to grips and was now demanding for a fulfilment to a bubbling anger. Wanted to smash a fist through the dashboard – new car be damned – wanted to gnash his teeth and snarl, feel the prickle of rage on his skin and physically manhandle this intruder _out_ of _his_ body.

_Who the hell are you?_ Rob shouted. _What do you want from me?_

"Me?" He heard himself laugh, and for a moment he wasn't sure it was even his _body_ anymore, for he had certainly never sounded _that_ bitter in his lifetime. "Lord of Hell to some," he said, amusement in his eyes. "Sam Winchester to others." He now grinned, teeth glinting in the soft light coming from the dashboard. "But you can just call me Sam."

_Sam?_ was all that Rob had time to think before a sudden darkness began to push down upon his consciousness. Like the humidity outside had turned into a physical entity that encroached into his mind, suffocating him and pulling him under an oppressiveness so profound that... wait, that didn't make any sense, but then again, at the moment, _nothing _did...

"Go to sleep, Rob," Sam said softly, and all was lost to darkness.

* * *


	2. Chapter 1

_**A/N:**_ Sorry for the incredible delay! In many ways, I'm finding this a tough story to tell, and I probably posted the prologue way too early, when I was busy with exams and had not formulated many important plot points in my head. Hopefully I'll be able to update much more regularly here onward (crosses all available appendages).

This is a divergence fic after Episode 4.19:_Jump the Shark_, i.e., my take on what could happen after that episode. The actual story is set two years later, but will reference heavily to my version of events that happen after that episode.

I'm pretty weak as regards to Christian/Biblical mythology. I've done some research, but most of the mythology in this story is made-up. If anything is glaringly wrong or offensive or does not fit in at all, please don't hesitate to point it out.

**Warnings**: Heavy SPOILERS for Season 4 until 4.19. General spoilers for the previous 3 seasons. Swearing, violence, blood and gore, some disturbing imagery, and unhealthy amounts of angst and whump. And, of course, made-up mythology.

* * *

_**One  
**_

_You feel like you've been here before._

_You're not sure why – the air's stiflingly hot, scalding even, burning your skin raw. It's dark – not blindingly, mind – but a kind of darkness that seems to shift and move in a way that's almost organic, like you've landed yourself in the belly of a giant beast. A dull pain, constant and throbbing, radiates through every inch of your body, but your moans are choked by a throat too raw and sore to release them. _

_Occasionally, when you strain your burning eyes, you can see – vague shapes in intermittent flashes of light from an unseen source, figures of hybrids made in grotesque fashion, parts of human and animal and bird put together in such horrifically unnatural guises that you're begging for the darkness again._

_For with every flash, their gazes snap to yours._

_With every flash, they seem to get closer, dripping malicious intent._

_Fearful anticipation occupies the forefront of your conscious thought, a festering fear of what has been and what is to come, but that cannot be right either – there doesn't seem to be any concept of time and place where you exist, you are not sure how long you've been there, whether it's been minutes or centuries. You're not really sure about __**how**__ you exist, either – whether you are standing or sitting or lying down, suspended or floating._

_Only the pain and the monsters remind you that you exist at all._

_Even so, there is no mistaking an inherent familiarity..._

_You strain for a memory to relate to your current predicament, but find nothing to sift through. What you are, what you were (for you must've been something at some point), it's all gone. Lost. Somewhere in the back of your mind, beneath the ache and the fear, that loss of identity unsettles you, leaves you with no hope to cling to, no cool breeze of sanity to soothe a terrorised soul._

_Instead of memory, instead of names and places and faces, you find impressions of pain, of loss and blood and death, of once-felt love, of crushing despair and wild hope, of soul-devouring anger and the slow-simmering need for revenge. Every time you try to focus on one, every time you try to coax something substantial out of all the roiling emotions, it flits away to join a million others to blend in the darkness and you are left spent and exhausted, with nothing to detract from the pain that slowly ramps up in intensity, little tingles that start up from your extremities that lead unto shocks that throw your already-overloaded body into convulsions. When you're sure you can't take any more, the pain slowly rolls out, allowing you to recover before starting up again._

_In and out, like a wave relentlessly against a cliff, eroding and disintegrating._

_Pretty soon, that pain is going to eat you alive, you know it. It's going to break down whatever little you have to call yourself and leave you open for the creatures of this featureless universe to feast upon._

_Until then, all you have is the fear and the pain and the monsters and the belly of the beast, and somewhere deep within you think that the familiarity lies in that this might not be the first time you realised the darkness is your enemy._

_

* * *

  
_

"It's demons, Bobby, even after all this while. I _know_ it."

Dean Winchester took a deep swig of his beer, raising his eyes to the older hunter who stood bending over the maps spread on the table, his face a study in scepticism. "I don't know, Dean," Bobby drawled finally, straightening. "There hasn't been a word on demonic activity for nearly two years now, and this ain't what you'd call _substantial evidence_."

Dean rolled his eyes, depositing the empty bottle on the table with an impatient flick of his wrist. What the hell was Bobby on about? They rarely ever investigated with _substantial evidence_, their entire goddamn careers was about looking up obscure signs, researching their supernatural import, and killing the sons of bitches. That was _all_. "Electric storms, freaky weather, cattle deaths, the works, Bobby," Dean said, stabbing a finger toward the map. "All of them spread around Stratford, Wisconsin, like freakin' whadjacallit, concentric circles, each one a little more intense the closer we get to the town. If _that_ doesn't indicate _demonic activity_ to you, I don't know what does."

"Supernatural activity, yes," Bobby said. "Demonic, I'm not so sure."

Damn if Dean wasn't just two seconds away from throwing his arms up and stalking away like Sa—like a five-year-old throwing a tantrum. "Why not, huh? Why the hell not?"

Bobby looked back at him with that perennial expression of supreme calmness, unfazed by Dean's temper. "I'm not blind, boy. You think I haven't noticed the signs? From what I hear from my contacts and what I can follow, there ain't been no cases of possession or any other unnatural activity in the area." His eyes softened. "Like it has been the past two years."

Dean turned away briefly, his right hand clenching into an involuntary fist. _I should never have come here_. "So you're saying that we shouldn't even check this out, is that it? That we should just leave it _be_?"

"I didn't say that," came Bobby's voice, unperturbed as ever. "I'm just sayin' we shouldn't go into this with the wrong ideas."

Suddenly Dean felt the fight go out of him, and slumped into a nearby chair with a world-weary sigh. He was just so _tired _of this shit, had been for years now, and if after playing hide-and-seek for months the demons would show up for _real_ now, like they were freakin' _supposed_ to, he could find what he needed and put an _end_ to all of it. The demons, his so-called destiny, the Apocalypse.

All he wanted was –

"It might not be Sam," Bobby said quietly.

-- Dean closed his eyes.

After what seemed like an eternity, he pushed back his chair and stood up. "I need to see him," he said gruffly. "Visit's long overdue."

Bobby nodded. "Give me a call before you head out tomorrow."

Dean walked out without another word.

He paused near the door for a fraction of a second, waiting for Bobby to chew him out. _Don't you get all sullen on me, boy_, or _Now's not the time to play Drama Queen, Dean_, but there was nothing but a respectful silence, an _understanding_ he had neither asked for nor needed, but seemed to surround him, suffocate him every second he spent in company.

_Huh._

He slid into the Impala, the empty passenger seat just as glaring as it had been two years ago (_just as it had been ten years ago_), when what should've been the end only turned out to be the beginning of a terrifying shit-fest (_the angels and the demon blood and Sam alive but dead_). Months and months of searching, fighting, waiting, and then waiting some more – all for what? The angels had told him that he was _destined_ (sure, because _destiny_ and _Winchester_ went so well together) to defeat Lucifer, that he was _destined_ to finish what he had started (_the end of the world_), but neither had Lucifer risen nor had the demons cared to show their ugly mugs on terra firma.

Instead, what was supposed to have been the final confrontation, the moment that four (_twenty six_) years of mindless struggle, of being pawns in a giant cosmic chess board was supposed to boil down to, only turned out to be another sly move, another plan within a plan, and for all that he was the supposed 'saviour', Dean was only left with a battlefield littered with corpses, his mind and body in tatters and sans brother.

Lillith still alive, still _some_where.

And _Sam_ –

He swore he could still see it all sometimes, playing in his mind over and over again, like the whole thing was a nightmarish film permanently imprinted on the back of his eyelids.

Sam spent and inexplicably _dying_ from their encounter with the ghouls –

Ruby making her dramatic entrance claiming to be the only one capable of saving Sam –

The horror, the soul-numbing shock of watching Ruby offer her blood to his brother, and his brother, his _Sam_, clutching at her arm like a drowning man, sucking down the seeping blood from the long gash without question –

The _familiarity_ in the act, the staggering magnitude of the implied _betrayal_, the guilt in Sam's eyes presenting a stark contrast to the blood painting his lips and chin –

The anger, the disappointment, the disgust –

The demon ambush, the confrontation with Lillith, Sam's powers touching hitherto unseen levels, the air filled with a power that crackled like static electricity against his skin –

Sam against Lillith, a clash of wills, a battle that seemed to be fought on a plane completely removed from Dean –

A sudden high-pitched sound, a flash of white obscuring all senses, a split second to think _Where the fuck are the angels?_ and the demons he was fighting against leaving their hosts in a spectacular explosion of grey smoke –

Sam screaming, Lillith screaming, Sam _dying_ –

Sam in his arms, still breathing, heartbeat still beating a steady rhythm, but his eyes glazed and empty, an empty shell without a soul, a soul sucked in with the exodus of demonic smoke –

Dean closed his eyes briefly, grip tightening on the steering wheel.

He'd had a lot of people spin the same spiel to him several times already. Bobby, Ellen, other hunters. _Let go_, they would say. _What was the point in preserving Sam's body when what was essentially his brother was lost?_ Bull.

What did they know about the Winchesters?

And so his brother lay in an anonymous hospital bed, still medically _alive_, in a state of deep unconsciousness out of which seemingly nothing could rouse him. Dean had gotten himself a decrepit little apartment in the same town, a place which Dean dubbed his HQ in moments of alcohol-induced light-headedness. He visited his brother as often as he could; sitting by the bed, recounting stories from childhood, hunts and scrambles from what now seemed like a different life. Not that he got a lot of response from Sam – he just lay there against the sheets, eyes closed, chest rising and falling in a gentle rhythm, an uncharacteristic serenity smoothing the creases on his brow, looking for all the world like he was merely asleep (_brain-dead, they said, but what did they know_).

Meanwhile Dean continued to search, and to hunt – sometimes he felt like it was all he had ever done his entire life, save his brother only to have him put in mortal danger once again. Sometimes he wondered _why_, sometimes he thought of Doctor Garrison and letting go, sometimes he thought of his brother's betrayal, all the lies and what he had become, sometimes he felt he had done enough, _given_ enough, but he continued to search anyway – because, dammit, Sam was his pain-in-the-ass little brother and _Winchesters don't give up_.

And now, _finally_, after weeks of research and verification, he had found something that could lead him to those demonic bastards after two years of a stubborn no-show, and no amount of misgivings or _understanding_ or silent pleas was going to deter him from wresting his brother back. The consequences could be dealt with later, because that was just how things went. How things had _always_ gone.

"_I didn't go down that road, Dean_."

And that was exactly it. Dean wasn't going down that road, either – except he _was_. That slippery dark slope of desperation that he had accused Sam of traversing and that which was becoming all too familiar to him just then. Maybe there was a moment in there where he felt like he understood his brother, what had driven him in his actions that had horrified him so. But, in the end, as always, it boiled down to one thing:

_Winchesters don't give up._

But _goddamn_, wasn't Dean tired of being a Winchester.

* * *

Millie Carlisle got it, she really did.

It was not an easy time to live in, what with the New Depression, terrorism, shifting balances of power, rationing, sensationalist news channels and all the boy bands... she knew nothing was to be taken for granted, not their jobs, not their homes, not even their lives. She saw it most in her husband, his longer hours at work, the new creases on his brow, his anxious gestures and uncertain vacillation between sudden splurging and extreme miserliness.

So she _got_ it.

But when Rob barged into the house and moved silently past her, stumbling and waving his hands around like a blind man, she figured it was time she drew a line.

"Hello to you too, _dear_," she said to his back, lips twisted into an admonishing pout, hand on hip. Might as well go for the whole hog while she was at it.

He whirled around abruptly like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar (and Millie figured those must've been pretty heavy-duty cookies, given the way Rob was acting), caught comically in mid-step, blinking wildly. "What?" he said, cocking his head. "What?" He attempted to complete his aborted motion, but merely ended up falling and nearly ploughing his head through the coffee table, only managing to stop himself in time.

Oh yeah, he was _definitely _off-kilter. Or, you know, insert random quip that meant the same thing.

It was best to be direct about these things, so, "Rob, are you _on_ something?"

"W-what? No." Rob blinked rapidly, still apparently trying to find his equilibrium. "I'm not..." He took a deep, shuddering breath, and licked his lips. "Maybe... maybe it would be better if I sat down."

Millie raised an eyebrow. _Be my guest._

He half-staggered his way to the couch, groping around like he wasn't sure exactly how low it was before settling down with a mighty exhale and dipping his head into his hands.

Okay, _now_ she was starting to get concerned.

She sat down next to him, settling a hand gently on his shoulder, noting the tenseness, the rigidity of the muscle. She involuntarily moved her touch to the back, between his shoulder blades, tracing small circles as she tried to massage out the tension. "Rob," she said. "Rob, what's wrong?"

He chuckled into his hands. "First time... not as easy as it looks."

Millie blinked, her hand freezing. She _had_ to have heard that wrong. "What?"

He lifted his head, looking at her like he was noticing her for the first time. "Forget it," he said quickly. "Where's Tim?"

Millie raised her eyebrows. _Change the subject and get away with it my foot. _"He's sleeping upstairs. Rob, you've got to tell me –"

"Nothing to tell." He might as well have let loose a steel shutter between them; his expression closed, and his body language gained a sudden rigidity and control, almost overcompensating for his loose-limbed clumsiness before. Millie suddenly felt cut-off, way in over her head, unable to understand what could've possessed her normally genial husband to start acting this weird. As he made to get up, she spoke, almost as a last-ditch attempt, "You know, Tim turns six months old today. I thought maybe we could do something –"

He paused, mid-way through standing up, and smiled down at her. "I know," he said, his voice now completely devoid of weakness or uncertainty. "Maybe later."

He proceeded to make an uncertain weaving way around the chairs and tables to across the hall, as if unsure of where everything was supposed to be. "I'll... just go to bed, then."

Millie sat rigid in her seat, suddenly very afraid. "No dinner, then."

He chuckled. "No." He turned to face her, and his gaze softened. "Just... just a tough day at work. Nothing to worry about."

_Oh really._ "You know you can tell me if there's anything –" But he had already disappeared from the living room, and she was left with her own niggling little misgivings gnawing away at the inside of her stomach, a dull burning ulcer. Rob was a nervous kind of guy, she knew. Given to mild paranoia, a propensity to worry that she sometimes found endearing. He drank occasionally, wasn't doing any drugs she was aware of, so _why_ –

_Unless_ –

She dismissed the thought before it had formed fully in her head (_who's the paranoid one now_) and proceeded preparing to retire for the night. She checked up on Tim in the nursery before entering the bedroom, smoothing down her white nightgown and tying her hair back. Rob lay on the bed, still in his shirt and pants, curled up on one side, breathing so deeply that she knew even without looking that he was faking sleep.

_If that's the way you want it_. She didn't know what was up with her husband, but she figured it wasn't anything that couldn't be resolved in the light of morning and a couple of cups of strong coffee, when she wasn't feeling so goddamn _tired_. _Add a hot shower to the list_, she thought, wrinkling her nose as she settled on to the bed next to Rob at the stench of dried sweat coming in waves off his person.

"Goodnight, Rob," she said, not bothering to wait for a response she knew wouldn't come and drifted to sleep.

It was eventually the smell that woke her up.

Rather, a _lack_ of it.

She opened her eyes, blinking in the darkness, before turning to her side. "Rob?" she called, stifling a yawn. "Rob?" His side of the bed was empty; the sheets so perfectly made it looked like nobody had slept there. Millie frowned and checked the clock on the bedside table. _11:07 PM_ shone back at her, big and neon.

That slow festering fear in her stomach prodded her into getting out of bed and giving a cautious visual appraisal of the bedroom. No sign of her husband, no response to her soft calls. She stepped out of the room, into the stairwell that separated the bedroom and the nursery. The door to the nursery was slightly open, the soft glow of the nightlight filtering between the door and the jamb, and Millie felt her gut clench with some unexplainable fear.

She pushed open the door and entered softly, to see her husband bending over Tim's cradle. Millie frowned. "Rob?" she called out, switching on the light.

He turned his face, blinking in the sudden light, and Millie gasped at what she saw.

Rob, his cut wrist seeping blood suspended over Tim, her _Tim_, and oh _god_, the blood dripping into Tim's open _mouth_, almost like –

"I'm sorry you had to see that," Rob said, and that was _Rob_, and yet sounded _nothing_ like him, all cold and deep and genuinely _regretful_ –

She tore her gaze with some difficulty to Rob's face – and immediately wished she hadn't, her worst nightmares reflected in the glossy black that was now Rob's eyes. "You," she growled. "Get away from my son."

He smiled – sad, melancholy, resigned – and stepped away from the cradle, palms up. She thought she could see the slightest flicker of a reptilian yellow in the black of his gaze.

After that, as the red-golden bloom of fire consumed her vision, she knew no more.


	3. Chapter 2

_**A/N:**_ Yay for update!

On a different note, just caught up with the Season 5 premiere, and _woah_. I can tell Season 5 is going to be _crazy_ (and I mean that in the best possible way). Looking forward to that!

* * *

_**Two**_

_There it is. A voice. _

_It teases at the very edges of your perception, teetering on the brink of existence. _

_When you can hear it – or maybe you only think you can, maybe this is another form of torture, dangling a sliver of hope and sanity so tantalisingly when you can barely remember what those felt like – it sounds... friendly, there's no other word for it, happy and affectionate and leaking time and perception into the featureless void._

_And when you (think you) hear it, it excites something within you, induces a different kind of familiarity, a memory that flits just out of reach. The emotion is powerful, though, and it provides a distraction from the pain, even if the strain of reaching for the memory is a different kind of pain, where every fibre of your body burns with the need to __**know**_.

_Just when the memory-that-isn't and the ever-present pain chase each other in your mind in a vicious cycle (_a snake after its tail_, you think wildly, _a snake after its tail_), building a symphony of suffering that threatens to explode into a spectacular crescendo that tears apart your very last threads of conscious thought, you open your eyes._

_That's funny, you think, because you don't ever remember closing them in the first place. What you see, though, is enough to drive away such trivial thought._

_First off, you can __**see**_.

_There is no absolute darkness – you find yourself suspended in a world with limitless, roiling skies, flashing black and yellow and red, clouds swirling in airborne whirlpools of grey, the air crackling with ions (_threatening, threatening, always threatening_). The ground stretches in front of you, to the limits of your vision and beyond, wasted, corrugated and soaked with moisture. There is nobody else, nothing else in sight (_not even the monsters_) and the utter loneliness hits you harder than your sojourn in the darkness: there, the solitude was a companion in itself, a time spent in sleep where you could reach within yourself and perceive and think; here, the terrifying environment robs you of even that luxury._

_Here, you are sickeningly __**aware**__._

_Aware of the smell – the smell of blood and death, of fire and waste, the putrid fumes of decay weaving through the smoke that burns your lungs, prickles against your skin._

_Aware of the rumble and thunder of the clouds overhead, of the sweat cloying on your person in the windless heat, so oppressive you imagine your blood coagulating in your vessels, sluggish and thick. Aware of the screams – the screams that start out as a faint whine in the distance, before building up into a roar of multi-layered agony: wordless, animalistic expressions of pain so raw, so exquisite you can almost feel it, taste it._

_And, finally, the pain you have to call your own._

_The pain still comes in waves, intensifying with movement, electrical tingles throwing your overwrought muscles into spasms that serve only to worsen the effect, until fatigue steals away even that ability and you can taste blood in your mouth. You soon find out the cause of the pain – you are suspended in chains that emerge from the skies and the ground, hooked into muscle and grinding against bone. Your arms and legs are spread wide apart, the joints stretched to their limits and beyond, held taut by the chains that pass straight through your palms, its links threaded into your forearms. The chains holding your legs immobile are hooked through the tops of your feet, the metal blending into the ankles. It seems like a message: that the pain is an indelible part of you, and will be through the eternity of your captivity. It fills you with a newfound horror that crushes any remaining semblance of hope._

_The sudden multitude of sensation after the centuries spent in the comforting darkness is too much; an overload that steals your remaining breath, and your head sags, chest heaving for air that doesn't come. You are so overcome that you almost miss the voice that woke you up, that brought you here. _

_This time the voice grounds your racing mind and stills your heaving body. You still cannot make out what the voice is telling you, but your watering eyes perceive a change in the near distance, the solidification of a vague figure, approaching you. You blink rapidly, trying to focus, and when finally it is in front of you, you nearly jerk back in surprise._

_It is a woman._

_A young one, at that – small-made and slender, with dark hair that falls in waves over her back and dark eyes that regard you with something you approximate to amusement. Impossibly white teeth glint through the lips pulled into a grin, her arms folded across her chest. She is dressed in black clothing (_shirt, jacket, jeans_, _terms that come to you as though from another life_) and that spark of familiarity grows into a forest fire that teases at the edges of recognition._

_You... you __**know**__ her – _

"_Well, if it isn't Boy Wonder," she says. Her eyes roam your body and her grin widens. "Turns out you're still the special kid, even in Hell." She laughs._

"_Welcome to your new home, Sam Winchester."

* * *

_

Dean Winchester had mixed feelings about fire.

On one hand, fire meant heady success: another corpse burnt, another spirit vanquished, another wicked sonuvabitch incinerated in a cleansing burst of flame. The feeling of accomplishment as he watched evil burn away (_so simple, just like that_) didn't fade away with frequency; instead the feeling only intensified every time, mixed headily with a bubbling relief; delight and pride and the simple gratitude at his fractured little world having held together yet another day simmering together in a corner of his chest.

On the other hand, fire also meant desperate failure: of death, of bereavement, of lost opportunities and staggering (_undeserving_) sacrifices. Fire had burnt through a gap in the fabric of his perfect little life at an age when he was too young to understand what he had truly lost, and let death and monsters through the hole. Accomplishment had nothing to do with it when he had burnt his father's corpse (_did he say anything to you?_), or Pamela's (_I knew I should never have had anything to do with you two_) or Adam's (_he died like a hunter_ _and deserves to go out like one_) or any of the funerals he had to see, any of the losses he had to bear (_what, torch Sam's corpse? Not yet, not ever_). The flames represented shortcomings, _his_ shortcomings.

It also meant –

(_fire and heat and pain, never-ending screams and blood gurgling in your throat_)

meant –

(_pleas and tears and eyes beseeching until gouged out, torture and ARE YOU WILLING TO_) –

Yeah, well, it basically meant his life was all kinds of fucked up.

As he stared at the burned out husk of what had been a peaceful suburban home barely twenty four hours ago, Dean could sense all of these things, and more.

The area had been cordoned off, and there seemed to be minimal official activity at the moment. He casually looked around for other gawkers, and sure enough, found one, a portly lady shaking her head at the ruin, her hands full of grocery bags. Dean made his way to her, modulating his demeanour to just the right mixture of urgency and relief.

"Excuse me, ma'am," he started. "Did you happen to know the Carlisles?"

She looked at him, a little startled, and frowned. "I –"

"Just an old family friend," he said quickly, flashing a nervous smile. "I had come by for a visit today, and instead I find _this –_"

"Oh. _Oh_," she said, shaking her head again. "Just so horrible. So horrible. So _sad_. And nobody really saw it coming, you know? Rob and Millie just didn't – I mean, such a nice young couple, they didn't deserve such a _tragedy_ –"

_Nobody does, lady_. He kept his expression unwavering in the face of her tirade with the ease of lifelong practice. "What – what exactly happened? Did they make it out?"

She sighed, and Dean was slightly startled by the genuine sadness in her voice. "They say... they say it was caused by some electrical dysfunction. But it seemed like it was _more _than that, you know? I mean, I saw it last night, the fire-fighters and the rescue workers, all of them trying so desperately to stop it, but the fire _just wouldn't stop_. It wouldn't!" She shuddered. "It just... it just took over the entire house, and there seemed to be _nothing_ that would even slow it down."

Dean was beginning to feel wary. "And the Carlisles?"

"Millie... Millie made it out with little Timmy," she said. "Robert, though..." She shook her head.

"He... died?" Dean didn't remember hearing about any death in his first cursory look into the fire.

"That's the thing," she said, looking at him earnestly. "Nobody _knows_. It was like he had disappeared into thin air, you know? I mean, he was definitely _with_ Millie in the house when the fire... happened, but he didn't make it out, and they haven't... haven't found his... _remains_..." She trailed off.

_Demon jackpot?_ "Did, uh... what about Millie? What is... Is she, uh..." _Dammit, Sa—I used to be so much better at this shit._

"Oh, Millie, poor thing!" the woman exclaimed, her eyes wide. "_Such_ a strong young woman, you know? But she was so broken up over the whole thing, wouldn't say a word after she escaped with Timmy in her arms. She told the police that she had been with Robert when the fire had started, but nothing after that, absolutely _nothing_. It makes one so _afraid_ for her, you know, this being such a _horrible_ time for something like this to happen –"

"Do you know where she is now?" Dean broke in, mind already racing.

The lady blinked, brow furrowing, but obliged anyway. "She's with her aunt, right now – you know, Holly, just across town? – but I'm not sure if she'll see anybody, you know, she refused to talk to anyone since last night, and I mean, poor thing, I can't blame her, young mother of a six month old baby without home or husband so _suddenly_ –"

Something whirred and clicked in Dean's brain, cog wheels dredging up old horrors. "Six month old --"

"Oh _yes_," the lady said, emphasising her words as if she understood their gravity (_but she can't, she doesn't have a damn __**inkling**_), "Tim turned six months old last night, Millie was telling me the other day, she was so _proud_ –"

Dean did not hear any more; a strange buzzing had filled his ears, and the world seemed to be teetering in front of his eyes ever so slightly.

_It can't be – _

"—are you alright, dear? Is there something –"

-- _something so familiar, like taking a breath after the last, fires and six month old babies and Dean, take your brother and go outside as fast as you can _–

"—maybe you should sit down somewhere, I could –"

-- _could remember blood dripping and insane kids with powers and Mom dying and Dad dying and Sam dying and yellow eyes and a bullet hole in the forehead, perfectly round and seeping blood and flashing spasmodically – _

"—are you even listening, young man?" A gentle tap on his cheek brought him out of his insane mental meanderings (_memories_) and Dean backpedalled involuntarily at her intense, concerned eyes staring into his own.

Dean wasn't entirely sure what he said after that, was only aware of a burning sense to _get away_, but he must've made some sense, because he found himself walking back to the Impala sometime later, almost on automaton, and there was no ambulance or harried old ladies in sight. Well, that was just _fine_, because his head had a shitload of things to work itself around just then, and with the itch of the gun tucked into his waistband constant (_and tempting_), he couldn't trust himself to remain calm around another stranger.

For some time, the only thought bouncing around inside his skull was _Holy shit, Azazel's back?_ because this was most obviously like the yellow-eyed bastard's MO, but Dean had _killed_ him four years ago, had seen that last bullet from the Colt bite into his skull, had _seen_ the demon implode within the possessed man's body, sparking and jerking in maniacal death throes.

That part of his life (_we need to find who killed Mom and Jess, Dean, we need to_) was supposed to be _over_.

Right?

-- _are you sure that what you brought back is one hundred percent, pure Sam? – _

He had almost reached his car when he got his panic under control. He had barely started investigating unusual happenings in the area with the hope of finding the demon epicentre when he heard of the mysterious fire (_he ought to have known then, oughtn't he? He ought to have_). So maybe this was how demons woke out of hibernation. Powerful ones like Azazel. (_And the mother didn't die, pinned to the ceiling, her belly slashed and dripping blood and the future of their family_) There had to be more like the yellow-eyed SOB out there, right? Hell hid horrors worse than Azazel, Alistair and Lillith put together, he knew. So this was just another demonic manifestation, an indication that the Apocalypse was at hand (_finally_). He just had to call Bobby now, and then, and then –

That was _all_.

So preoccupied was Dean with his self-reassurances that he almost didn't notice the man leaning casually against the driver's door until he was almost up against him.

"Hey, Dean," the man said, grinning into his face. As in, really _beaming_: Dean thought he could count every tooth.

Dean blinked, startled. _What the hell?_

"It's really good to see you again," the man said, straightening. "Long time, huh?"

Dean frowned. "I have no idea who you are." His gaze flicked, and hardened. "And I don't care. But I'd suggest that you better _get off my car_."

To his surprise, the man laughed, full and loud, mirth rippling from his belly. "Still so sensitive about this old thing?" He patted the hood. "Gotta say that I kind of missed her, too."

The itch of the gun was now veritable agony: each and every one of Dean's senses, honed by a lifetime of hunting, was on high alert. This guy spoke to him like they were two college buddies at an alumni meet; there was a genuine affection in his tone. A sense of understanding, like he knew Dean inside out.

"I don't know you," he said evenly.

The man's mile-wide grin settled into a more sober facsimile. "Really, Dean? You don't?"

Dean's brow furrowed as he carefully studied the man once again. Short-statured and puffy, he looked like a man used to sedentary work. He was dressed in a white shirt and grey pants that were marred by streaks of what looked like soot, traces of which lingered in tousled blond hair and around smiling brown eyes.

In short, entirely unremarkable and like nobody Dean would know personally.

"I don't." His fingers curled around the bottle of holy water he had in his jacket, slowly, almost imperceptibly. The other hand was ready to pull out the gun from his waistband in a flash.

The man pouted, almost mockingly. "Really, Dean? I'm hurt." He looked down at himself. "But then again, I guess my appearance isn't helping." He smiled. "I'm not really much like Mr. Carlisle here, am I?"

_That's it_. Dean's hands moved, but not fast enough to miss the man (_demon, demon, it's a fucking demon_)'s next words. "Dean, I'm Sam."

Dean froze – as in actually stood so still that for a moment he thought something in the universe tilted over and suddenly he had become the axis around which it spun. As though from a great, immeasurable distance he thought he heard someone whisper "What?" like that person had something huge caught in his throat, and it took him a second to realise that the voice he had heard was his own.

"I'm Sam," the man said calmly. "You know, Sam Winchester, son of Mary and John Winchester, younger brother of –"

"That's _enough_." Suddenly Dean was centred. Everything was clear, the tumblers falling into place, the dazed confusion of the past few minutes dissipating like something had shaken it out of him. He was done with supernatural beings screwing him over, and damn if he was going to let this one use Sam's name and get away with it.

With the thumb of his left hand he popped off the cap from the bottle of holy water even as he brought it around quickly and forcibly, splashing its contents over the man's visage.

His skin steamed where the water had hit, and the eyes flashed that glossy black (_demonic, demonic, I've been waiting so long for these bastards_), but the man didn't flinch or squirm. "—younger brother of Dean Winchester," he finished, still smiling down at Dean. "You have to believe me, bro. I've been waiting for so long to see you."

This wasn't even a moment for _That's it_s. Dean was _way_ past rational thought, way past considering and weighing and testing and all of the little warning bells going on in the back of his brain. He brought the gun out of his waistband in a single, fluid movement.

"You're not my brother," he said, and shot the man point-blank in the chest.


	4. Chapter 3

_**A/N**_: My thanks to those who read/reviewed! This story's getting harder to write with every chapter, but I'm having so much _fun_. Joyous labour, indeed.

* * *

_**Three**_

_Sam Winchester._

_Your eyes roam restlessly, vision forever glazed with perennial pain and inexorable heat. You can still hear the voice, but you don't listen to it, let it blend into the background with the thunder and the screams. The movement is displacing tears, cool trails down blistered cheeks._

_Sam Winchester._

_After some time, fatigue encroaches upon even your denial, and your eyes settle on what is front of you, eyelids at half mast. She is still standing there, cocky smile intact, arms crossed over her chest. Still amused, still waiting. You are not sure what for._

_Sam Winchester._

_The name means nothing to you; does not ring any bells, does not bring upon any dawning light of realisation. Identity was supposed to be the rock to cling to in the pain-soaked rapids in your mind, but the one you have been proffered does not induce any memory of the life you are so desperate to know that you had once lived, no clues to the origins of all the emotions roiling in the pit of your stomach, impressions you are afraid will fossilise and disintegrate over the course of time and you lose what little you have of what you are, what you __**were**__ – _

"_So you don't remember," she says, and you are provided a distraction from the panic clawing at your insides. "You really don't remember... anything." Her smile broadens._

_Your head sags in response, unable to find the energy to answer._

_She laughs once again, louder this time, and you've given up trying to predict her responses (_except you don't remember, and can't predict anything at all_). "You are one lucky bastard, you know that?" she says, shaking her head. "Always have been."_

_You can't but help a spark of incredulity. Of all the words you would use to describe your situation, 'lucky' is certain not to make the list._

_She must've seen something in your face, for she laughs again, a sound that has already begun to grate upon inflamed nerves. "Oh, I mean it," she says. "You're in hell, Sam. There's nothing worse – absolutely none – than having to spend eternity in perdition while you can still remember freedom, while it erodes away your humanity. Slowly." Storm clouds briefly pass over her leer, as if in dark memory._

_Hell –?_

_You can't – but, wait, if you're in, in, it's too fantastical to even imagine (_but it fits, it fits, oh dear Lord, it fits like a nightmare_), but if you're in... __**hell**__, then you must be – _

"_Yeah, you're dead," she says, as if she just read your mind (_and she probably did_, you think). "Dead as a doornail, or you know, whatever." She looks up at you, and the leer is well-entrenched on her face once again. "Funny that it's the first thing you think about, hm?"_

Nothing funny about it_, you think. A ball of emotion makes it up your gullet, curiosity, horror and amazement all in a tangle, past your throat and your cracked, bleeding lips. "Who are you?" in a voice so wasted, so dry that you are sure the words reach her in fragments, flitting like peeled-off paint in the wind._

_The leer disappears; for a moment you think the eyes soften in an expression approximating affection, and you are reminded of the voice that brought you out of your slumber. "Ruby," she says. "You knew me as Ruby." She gestures to herself. "I suppose I needn't have bothered to show up in the form you knew me in, since obviously you don't remember anything."_

Ruby_. The name excites no memory, no emotion other than a vague sense of apprehension. But if she can, if she knew you and she can – _

"_Can you," you attempt, and your voice tears up your throat like glass shards. The pain is just another shade in an already extensive spectrum of suffering, though, and the possibility of hope overrides all else. "Can you... get... here, out, es—esca—" You break into coughs, deep shuddering coughs that wrack your body and introduce you into universes of pain that you couldn't imagine existed. The world turns blessedly dark once again and you ride the pain out, like the crest of a red wave._

_When you open your eyes, when pooled tears are released and drip onto the wasted land, she is still there, waiting. "I can't," she says. "I can't get you out of here. Nothing and no one can."_

_You are startled by the sudden absence of levity from her tone, each word bitten out like she couldn't emphasise their seriousness enough. Spoken like an awful, undeniable truth that falls upon you like a leaden weight and drags your soul into the depths of hell (_except you're already there, and there can't be anything lower, there can't be anything _worse)._

"_No. It can't –"_

"_Oh, but it __**is**__, Sammy." She is smiling again, the whites of her eyes gleaming through the heat-haze. "You're dead, remember? There's nothing to go back to, and nothing to help you if you want to. No angels to help the youngest Winchester, I'm afraid." She swept her arm, encompassing their surroundings in her gesture. "This is your new home, Sam. The sooner you accept that, the sooner we can progress."_

_Panic rears its ugly head once again, and every jolt of pain is felt all that more exquisitely with the knowledge of its permanence. "You can't –" you rasp, "... do this... to me."_

_Ruby shrugs. "I didn't. Neither did anybody else." Her smile stretches until it seems like it extends from one end of your contracting universe to the other. "Like I've said before, Sam, it's all about you. It's always been about you, and you alone."_

_You sag in defeat. "But... what can __**I **__do?"_

_She laughs. "Now that's a question only you can answer."

* * *

_

"What did you go and do that for?"

Dean Winchester stood stock-still, gun still pointed at the thing wearing Rob Carlisle's body and claimed to be his brother, as every lesson in hunting he had ever learnt in his lifetime deserted him, all that suavity, all that badass posturing, leaving his mind painfully blank. The demon smiled at him and gestured at the muzzle barely inches from the fast-spreading bloom of red on its shirt. "You might want to put that away, you know. Lucky no one's looking."

_Get a hold of yourself, Winchester._ Dean cursed that after so many months of waiting, he had allowed himself to be so completely off his game when the moment had finally come. Still, it didn't matter. Things could've been worse, and he could still salvage this situation. Could find out what he needed to, and then –

And then –

Okay, well, maybe he hadn't come there with a very far-reaching plan. But hey. Since when had _far-reaching_ plans ever worked for them?

Dean smirked, and replaced his gun. Ruby's knife rested heavily inside his jacket, and he itched to pull its blade across this bastard's throat and witness the demon dying inside, its death throes a short-lived fireworks display inside a translucent lantern. But that would have to wait for now. "Lucky? Don't really think I care all that much about _lucky_."

The demon's ingratiating smile was intact. "Oh, you should, Dean," it said. "For instance, you're pretty damn lucky I'm not actually a demon, 'cause if I was, your corpse would've started turning cold five minutes ago." Dean imagined a sort of fond admonishment (_a fond admonishment he remembered only one person to have ever looked upon him with_) entering the demon's eyes. "You're getting even more reckless in your old age, if that's even possible."

Dean frowned. "I've attended Demonology 101, you know – so you can stop bullshitting and give me one good reason I shouldn't exorcise you right back into hell, right now."

The demon laughed. "Go ahead, pull me out of this body, you might actually be doing me a favour." It touched the bloody stain on the breast of its shirt, a hint of regret playing on that annoying smile. "Real waste of a fine vessel. Thought you knew better than to kill the host just like that, Dean." Its eyes flicked up to him, and Dean was startled by the sudden intensity. "And now I need to find another before I die – because I _am_ dying, you know. Tough work, this possession; yet it's my only sustaining factor topside."

Dean's hands shook, ever so slightly, but he kept his expression intact. "Interesting as that undoubtedly was, what I need to know –"

"All you need to know," it interrupted, "is that I'm _not_ a demon. I don't react in the same way to holy water or sigils or any of the other little experiments of proof. I'm your brother, Dean, your brother who will not survive long here unless he is reunited with his original body." It smirked. "I don't know about you, bro, but I have no intention of spending another couple of centuries down there. So if you could help me in that regard –"

_What does this thing take me for?_ "Like I'm really going to take you to Sam –"

"I _am_ him, Dean," the demon replied patiently.

"No, fuck this," Dean said, losing his tenuous hold on composure once again. "Sam's... gone because of this goddamn hide and seek thing you have going on with the angels, and sure, go ahead, but this is the last time you'll be involving me and my brother in this, do you understand me?" Its mouth opened to interrupt, no doubt with another fantastical claim (_and Dean was done being vulnerable, he was_), and he continued quickly, because, _goddamn_, he had to find this out. "All I want to know right now is where my brother actually _is_. Or God help me, I'll –"

"You'll come down there, and kill every demon personally? Not much has really changed, huh." The demon's smile had lost some of its maniacal quality, and settled into something gentler. "The day you fought Lillith, your brother died. His soul was pulled down into hell along with the other demons'. He spent two years there, or as you would know, Dean," it added, with a deferential nod to the hunter, "an earthly equivalent of two hundred years."

_No_. "But Sam is still –"

"Alive?" The demon shrugged. "Perhaps. In the loosest definition of _alive_, yeah, he is. His soul languished in the depths before he was finally presented an opportunity to come upstairs, to get back to his old body and complete your definition of _alive_." Its smile spread again. "And he's standing here right now, talking to you."

Memories came unbidden to Dean's mind, horrific images of torture, death and unexplainable suffering. _Thirty years on the rack and ten putting others on it_ and oh _god_, he could imagine it now, every one of his worst nightmares playing out in his head, except that in each of them, his face was replaced with that of his brother's. _Two hundred years _and Dean couldn't, he just couldn't even consider that Sam, his _Sam_, could've undergone something that horrific for so long and come back, his humanity lost, become a creature of the kind he had spent his whole life hating and fearing and killing –

"There's no need to panic, Dean." It (_Sam, demon, both of them, neither of them_) laughed. "Really, I thought you'd be at least a little glad to see me."

"You're not –" Dean sighed. _Go ahead, sound like a broken record. So much for Mighty Demon-Slaying Hunter._ He pulled a hand through his hair, hair long enough now to let his fingers through the strands. "Look, I've been here before, alright? And I won't be fooled again." Dean didn't doubt the demon (_whatever_)'s assertion that his brother was (_had been_) in Hell; although the very thought twisted his gut and saliva flooded his mouth, he didn't doubt it. Dean had _seen _it, hadn't he? He had seen those grey masses of demonic smoke plunge into the earth like performing an eerily concerted dance movement; had seen Sam fall to the ground in their wake, limp and lifeless. Soulless.

But did that mean he had to accept it?

_Nah, never._

Dean swallowed his nausea, and spoke. "Fact: Sam is still alive. Fact: You're still a demon. I may have not gone to Stanford, but I can put two and two together well enough."

"And still come up with five," the demon said, rolling its eyes in exasperation. "_Fact_, Dean: I haven't killed you. Not even tried. And also, _fact_: I don't see you going for the knife in your jacket with all that much enthusiasm." Its eyes softened. "Fact: I don't have an angel to pull me out for an overarching mission to stop the end of the world. I _am_ Sam, Dean, even if I am not exactly the person whom you knew." It grinned again. "But I'm certainly the person who knew you."

Dean frowned. "But you did that." He made a half-gesture in the direction of the burned-down home of the Carlisles. "You didn't kill me, but you did _that_."

Its eyes flicked, grin faltering for the first time. "It had to be... it, uh. I... can explain, Dean. Later. Besides," it continued, meeting his gaze again, "I didn't kill anybody. _You_ did." It fingered the blood stain again.

The knife's call was excruciating now, it burned through his layers of clothing like the blade, red-hot, rested against his bare chest. Dean gritted his teeth. "You're a –"

The demon's hand came up, arm extended in annoyance. "Don't. Just don't say it." It sighed. "Dean, I. Am. _Not_. A demon!"

Dean pursed his lips. He'd had just about enough of this shit. "Well, we'll see about that."

He lowered his voice, and started with the familiar exorcism rite, rolling freely off his tongue even though he hadn't the opportunity to use it in nearly two years. "_Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus –_"

Its eyes turned black, but it didn't flinch, didn't even clench its teeth. The demon stood still, staring at Dean, showing no signs of discomfort, making no move to get away. A little worm of doubt began to snake around Dean's gut: he ignored it out of several years' experience.

" – _omnis congregatio et secta diabolica –_"

_Finally_, something: the demon twitched, brow creasing. It took a few steps back, leaning against the car and sliding slightly against the door, hand coming up to the bloody stain on its chest that was now starting to spread again. It looked up at him. "Stubborn as ever," it said, voice breaking toward the end with the strain.

Dean carried on inexorably.

Just before he could complete his exorcism, however, its mouth opened in a silent scream and let out a billow of demonic smoke, the host's neck obscenely extended, muscles corded and straining. Dean flinched automatically as the smoke flew past him, a blast of supercharged air that ruffled his hair, and into... well, certainly not back into Hell. Dean sighed again, and was surprised to find that it was because of disappointment.

"... Sam."

Dean turned, startled, toward the weak voice. Rob Carlisle sat slumped on the ground, back against the Impala, his shirt now fully soaked with red and gasping, still, inexplicably, alive.

_Shit_. Dean quickly knelt next to him, fumbling for his cell phone. "Hang in there," he murmured, flipping the phone open, knowing full well that the man had barely seconds more to live. Dean's aim had been pin-point accurate, even disoriented by anger (_and fear_).

"That... bastard," Rob forced out. Dean's gaze was once more drawn toward the dying man's, and he found Rob grinning, actually _grinning_, displaying darkly blood-stained teeth. "He promised."

Dean froze, thumb still hovering over '9'. "... What?"

But the life had already gone out of Rob's eyes, eyelids closing. Rob's torso listed heavily to one side, body contorted into an awkward position. Dean's throat worked as he carefully laid Rob's body on the ground, hands still rock-steady, and finished his anonymous 911 call. Satisfied that Rob's body would be found soon and carefully checking for unwanted evidence or witnesses, he slid into the Impala and began to drive away.

Driving away, leaving messes for other people to clean up. Sounded familiar.

Inevitably, as the scenery blurred past the windows, his thoughts began to mull over what that... well, demon had said. It seemed absurd at every level – starting with the fire itself (_goddamn demons always up to their own little freaking secret patterns_), the demon's assertion that it was well, _not_ actually a demon, but... but Sam, his little brother fresh out of nearly two centuries spent in hell. (_It fit, what with the secrets and the strange happenings and turning into something Dean had tried so hard to save him from, and oh _god_, it fit!_)

And then, Rob Carlisle, dying (_dead_), Sam's name and a broken promise the last words from his lips.

Absurd.

And yet –

_No. Nononono_. Sam was still _alive_. Sam was still breathing, his heart still beating, right? By all means of convention, even in their twisted little universe, Sam can't have gone to Hell without _dying_ first, could he? (_But when had Sam ever been conventional?_)

Being in Hell was not actually _being_ in hell, Dean knew. His body... his corpse had been rotting away pretty serenely in his shallow grave in the four months he had spent down under, suffering, well – going through – uh, and ----

So, okay, maybe he didn't want to be revisiting that time yet.

But, getting to the point, it did seem entirely possible that Sam's soul had been yanked down there, leaving his body intact, all those months ago. It should've been pretty obvious from the beginning, but Dean hadn't been willing to even consider that, consider the magnitude of the failure on his part that it entailed (_and he had failed so many times already_). But for Sam to come back as a _demon_? To possess some poor bastard and inflict the same tragedy upon his family, the tragedy that had, twenty-eight years ago, changed their own lives irrevocably? That went past just Dean's flimsy attempts at denial – it touched a pulsing core of horror deep within him, a fear he didn't imagine he could feel this side of the Veil.

In the end, it came down to that all-too-familiar question:

Just what exactly had happened to his little brother?

Dean knew that he needed to look further into this; knew, in a small, unaffected corner of his mind that the next logical step would be to find a way to talk to Millie Carlisle, but there was something else he needed to do first.

He pulled up outside the first bar he could find – sparsely populated in the middle of the day – and was halfway through his fifth bottle of beer when he pulled out his cell phone again, hands only shaking slightly. He pressed a number on speed-dial and held the phone to his ear.

"Bobby? It's Dean."

* * *

It always started with the Headache.

Chuck Shirley grimaced, tightening the cord of his ratty old dressing gown. The glowing screen of his computer and the sheets of paper scattered all over his, uh, _work-desk_ (because that made it sound like he actually had a life of his own, right?), called to him with a nauseating appeal all of their own, which, god help him, he couldn't resist – and hadn't resisted, for nearly six years now. He had almost made it there – tripping over a couple dozen old pizza boxes on the way – when the Headache gave way to the Whispering.

A steady murmur of quiet voices started up in his head, words spoken so fast they seemed to blend into each other, swirling incomprehensibility that seemed to fill his brain and fuel the headache. He froze, hand still stretched out to pull back his chair. The voices – and they sounded so urgent this time, undercurrents of panic that he had never remembered hearing before – usually meant that –

"Hello, Chuck."

He swirled around, startled at the quiet voice, and groaned. Oh, what wouldn't he give for the (blessed, blessed) days when he believed all he wrote was figments of his imagination – figments that most certainly did not suddenly barge or teleport into his home and scare the living shit out of him (or, you know, inform him that he was some kind of mystical Prophet protected by an Archangel).

"Castiel," Chuck said, almost resigned. "Haven't seen you angels in a while."

The angel walked slowly across the hall, gaze sweeping across the untidy mess without actually looking at it. "Things have been... complicated. The war has reached an unexpected stalemate, and there is great confusion in all of the Realms, even, I suspect," Castiel added, finally looking at Chuck. "Hell."

There seemed to be some kind of suggestion attached to the last word – what it was Chuck couldn't be sure, certainly none of his recent visions had had much to do with it. He tried to keep his face neutral, although that was probably useless when confronted by an all-powerful angel. "And you've come now, because..."

"Certain plans have been set into motion," Castiel intoned, "and the time has come for us to act, and the war will resume again. However, that does not concern you directly – you need have no fear." A faint smile crossed the angel's face. "All I've come to ask of you is a small favour."

Chuck swallowed. "Favour?"

"When Dean Winchester comes to you asking if his brother has come back, tell him the truth."

_Is that it? _Chuck frowned. "But if –" he began, only to be silenced as Castiel raised his hand. "You will know what to say when the time comes," he said. "It is imperative to our plans that Sam and Dean Winchester are reunited."

Chuck burned to know more. He glanced at the table, at the printed sheets detailing his latest visions regarding the Winchesters, wondering at what it could all mean. Being a Prophet sucked if you had no way of interpreting what you saw. He turned toward Castiel in the hope that he would tell him more, but the angel had already pulled his disappearing act, and he was only peering at empty space.

_That's just enlightening, thanks_.

With his headache ramping up in intensity, Chuck collapsed into his chair, groaning. It seemed like another vision was forthcoming, not to mention the unpleasant prospect of confronting Dean again, somehow so much more intimidating in person, especially when it came to matters relating to Sam. Not to mention an impending Apocalypse and hordes of demons roaming freely once again on earth...

What was it that he had said, all those months ago? Ah. Ah, yes.

Writing was _hard_.


	5. Chapter 4

_**A/N:**_ Sorry for the incredible delay! Life's getting busier as the year wears on, and this chapter was a monster to finish. No, really.

My thanks to those who've read/reviewed - I would certainly love more feedback! Hope you continue to enjoy!

* * *

_**Four**_

_Decades roll by, unnoticed._

_Sometimes you think about how ridiculous that sounds, because your surroundings never change; you seem to be suspended in a perennial prelude to a vicious storm, oozing sweat and blood and sanity. There's no way to __**actually**__ measure how much time has passed, because there is no night or day or sun or moon or any kind of physical or human law that would apply to where you are._

_There is something soothing, however, something sane and normal and __**human**_ _in keeping track of time, a sense deeply ingrained in your psyche that has you set time limits to everything, counting down seconds in your head as if waiting for an end you are not sure will ever come. Three hundred and twelve between the crest of every wave of pain, precise, like clockwork. Five between every breath that feels like hot coals in your lungs, fire burning through your chest. Approximately four hours before you just fade out into a darkness where time doesn't matter, and then pain tugs you harshly back into consciousness, weaving in and out (_like a needle and thread, binding you to place with every stroke, every stitch_) and you start counting. All over again._

_Sometimes Ruby is there when you come back, smiling at you with a thoughtful crease between her eyebrows. Most times, when you return her gaze with a tired one of your own, she speaks. You listen – there is not much else to do anyway apart from the (_two hundred and sixty nine, two hundred and seventy, two hundred and ohgodithurtsmakeitstop_), but that's not the only reason. You listen out of a morbid curiosity, maybe searching for clues to your previous life, fumbling at hope for pulling off an escape after all, because for all that she claims to the contrary, you believe Ruby wants to help you._

"_Sam," she starts now, as you swim back into consciousness and almost automatically pick up your count again. "Do you know that you once had a brother? Cocky son of a bitch, but he was important to you."_

Brother. Twenty six. _The word means nothing to you, it rattles in your head meaninglessly like coins in a metal container, along with _Sam Winchester_. _Thirty one. Thirty two. _But if this brother still exists, and if Ruby deemed it important enough to tell you, to ask you if you remembered, maybe he could – _

"_He was hanging here, not so long ago," she continues, as if she hadn't really expected a response, "although, of course, he had a whole lot more company." She grins, a wild thing that pulls soft lips thinly against perfect white teeth. "But then again, your brother's always been the more popular one, hasn't he? People love him, and boy, he __**loves **__it. And Alistair..." She laughs. "Oh, Alistair loved him, too. Loved the way he screamed, loved the way he protested, loved the way he would scream __**your**__ name, Sammy, scream it until his voice box was torn out for the millionth time, or his intestines were stuffed down his throat."_

Sixty two. Sixty three. Sixty four.

_Her wild grin tones down into a facsimile of the 'understanding' she was trying to project earlier. "And here we are," she says, voice still amused, " you hanging where dear old Dean was before his angel cavalry 'saved' him, and you can't even remember that you had a brother, leave alone dear, noble, self-sacrificing Dean." _Eighty seven. Eighty eight. _"Irony: bitch, huh?"_

"_Why... are –"_

"_Why am I telling you this?" she finishes, raising an eyebrow. "Your brother, Sam. Dean worked so hard, tried so much to make sure you wouldn't land up here. He suffered and he killed, and finally, when he went back? He went back a shell of who he was – a pretty shell, no doubt, but a shell nonetheless." She tilts her head, smiling up at you. "He gave everything of what he was – and you're still here. Sometimes, you just can't fight destiny, right?"_

_You gaze blearily at her, unable to follow where she is trying to lead you. "—destiny decided by whom?" you ask._

_Her smile widens. "Very good, Sam!" she says, like a teacher whose student has finally figured out a difficult concept. "It is an interesting question, isn't it? Who decides all the crap we go through? Who decides the final destination? We think it's us, but how sure are we that the situations that shape our decisions are not already created by some pre-ordained power?"_

One hundred and thirty three. One hundred and thirty four. _"—don't know." You lift your eyes to her, trying desperately to maintain a plaintive gaze despite the crushing exhaustion. Maybe she would take pity, and she would, would – "Just... want it to stop."_

_A long moment of silence, in which a hard, mocking light enters her eyes. "It's not going to, Sammy-boy." _

_She shakes her head, giving a short, barking laugh, exasperation colouring her tone for the first time since you saw her. "So you're still waiting for somebody to __**rescue**__ you? How much ever you claim to have forgotten, it looks like __**that**__ one thing's never changed." She smirks. "Special little Sammy, who claims to be an independent adult, but who still needs his big brother to hold his hand when things get rough."_

_A strange, untraceable anger seizes hold of you then, and you bristle despite the pain. "No, I do not!"_

_The petulance in your voice whiplashes in the long moment of silence that follows, while Ruby's smirk remains intact. "Exactly," she says, slow and low and utterly amused. "Oh, Sammy, Sammy, __**Sammy**__. All this while I thought I was talking to __**Sam**__, but I guess I was just deluding myself, huh? Happens to the best of us, I guess." _One hundred and seventy nine. One hundred and eighty. One hunDRED AND – _"Oh, you can get as angry at me as you want, Sammy. But there's no getting out of here. There's no brother and there's no life to get back to. I think I've told you that you are dead – or haven't you been paying attention?"_

_You shift weakly in your chains, struggling with warring emotions. _I'm too tired_, you think, _too tired to deal with all of this._ "I—I don't... don't know –"_

_Her eyes soften, just a fraction. "Of course you don't." She sighs. "Despite everything, you're __**here**__, Sammy. You don't remember your own name, but the concept of hell and demons doesn't bother you as much as it can, as much as it should. Why do you think that is?"_

Two hundred and three. Two hundred and four._ Quite honestly, you have no idea. There __**is**__ horror, no doubt, it lies coiled in your guts like an icy parasite, sending feelers to every one of your over-taxed nerve endings, seizing your muscles in a way that is removed from the ever-present pain, but it is not blinding, not all-encompassing. You can still __**think**__. You can still turn your situation over in your head, examine it dispassionately if you want to_, if you want to –

"_Why are you here, Sammy? Why am I standing here, talking to you, instead of watching you being repeatedly torn apart? Why do you think there is nothing else here, why you don't remember anything about your past life?" She cocks her head. "Interesting questions, all of them – more interesting and meaningful, in fact, than their answers." The skies continue to rumble ominously; you imagine that you feel the same way – your very being a chaotic jumble of varied perception and half-baked understanding, offset by dark, roiling emotions from a forgotten life, all pushing you toward a vicious cloudburst of cold insight that always seems just out of grasp._

Two hundred and sixty five. Two hundred and sixty six. Two –

"_You have all the time in the world to think about them," Ruby continues. "Hell rarely affords anybody that luxury; so __**think**__. Maybe you'll find answers, maybe you won't. It doesn't matter. But considering these questions may be more important than anything else."_

_She's not making sense – or maybe she is, and you just wouldn't admit it. _The pain, the exhaustion. _They drain you, they're eating you alive, but you realise that your hope is just as involved in that aspect. Maybe it's what's pulling you back from the cusp of understanding. Maybe it's that desire to hunker down, and cower, suffer in silent hope that's obscuring all else, maybe – _

Three hundred and ten. Three hundred and eleven. Three hundred and –

_The pain swells up again and pulls you out into that timeless space – only, this time, it's white.

* * *

_

This was absurd, she surmised, feeling half-crazed. The man was ridiculously attractive.

"Mrs Carlisle?" he said, raising his eyebrows, pen poised intelligently over an open pad by his side. The sunlight streaming in from the wide-open windows appealingly highlighted his impeccably coiffed visage, the neatly pressed dark blue suit and the red tie. Wide green eyes fixed on her in almost overdone concentration, crinkling at the corners, a movie-perfect balance of sympathy and a quiet determination to perform a necessary, if painful, duty.

"Just a few questions, you understand," he said, voice deep and rolling. "We need to verify a few things."

Millie Carlisle blinked, suppressing a sudden urge to giggle, knowing that if it started she would get hysterical – again. Pitch-perfect investigator from all the corny whodunit shows she and Rob used to watch on TV curled up on the sofa, Rob chortling and mouthing the dialogue complete with the exaggerated gestures, while she would give him half-hearted slaps of admonishment –

_Rob – _

She wondered what he would say to her ultimate teenage fantasy sitting in front of her (_FBI, ma'am, investigating your husband's death_), not that of course, her fantasy had ever been to be sitting in a room that smelt of flavoured tea and stale memories talking about what she knew about her husband's death (_murder, murder, we suspect it might be murder, would you have another cup of tea?_), but Rob would've had things to say, oh yes, narrowed eyes and _Would you stop ogling the man, Millie? I'm thinking the fact that I'm dead's more important than a purple fantasy – _and so what was she supposed to do? She didn't know what she was supposed to _do_ and the man, the attractive, corny-investigator man, was leaning forward again with an _are you alright, ma'am?_ on his lips, and Millie's had just about _enough_ of this movie, and can she please change channels?

Despite her efforts, a giggle escaped her, and before she knew it, she had collapsed into uncontrollable laughter, doubling over, laughing so hard pain flared in her sides and tears were running down her cheeks. She wasn't sure when the laughter became sobs, when her body started shaking and the constriction in her throat was due to bubbling grief rather than mirth, however crazy and self-deprecating the humour had been to start with.

To his credit, he kept silent until she had regained some semblance of control over herself. She lifted her eyes, to find him holding out a clean handkerchief, his lips twisted into an awkward smile. She stared at him, wondering whether to be horrified or to start laughing again – because the previously suave uber-investigator looked distinctly uncomfortable, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes more pronounced, more _I need to get this moving and I don't have a damn idea how_. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Carlisle, I know this is difficult for you, but –"

Millie grabbed the handkerchief from him then and covered her face with it, cutting his words off. She had been swinging between hysterical and catatonic frequently enough over the previous twenty-four hours to alarm even her no-nonsense aunt; it wasn't fair to expect a stranger – well-meaning or not – to put up with it. Taking in a deep breath, she collected her fragmented composure, and removed the cloth from her face. "Thank you." She smiled weakly. "And... sorry. Maybe we ought to start this again?"

He nodded a little too quickly, relieved. His hand nervously worked the pen between his fingers. "I'm agent Dean McArdle, FBI. I've just come with a few questions regarding the fire, and... and your husband's death."

They had found Rob the previous day, dead, inexplicably, from a gunshot wound – not as a charred heap of organic material, as she had been hoping to find him, if he had died at all, but as a whole corpse, easily recognisable and wholly lifeless. Millie swallowed against the grief that threatened at the bottom of her throat, and nodded. "Go ahead, agent."

"Please, call me Dean," he said instantly, before, to her surprise, his gaze flicked and wavered, as if he was pre-occupied himself, before settling on to her in a passable semblance of the practiced earnestness that he had projected earlier. "Starting with the fire, Mrs. Carlisle, can you tell me exactly, in your memory, what happened that night?" The pen rotated faster and faster in his hand, and Millie found it strangely fascinating. "Without omitting any detail... however small."

"I've... I've told the police everything I know about the fire." Round and round it moved, before the spinning abruptly stopped and he began rolling the pen along the back of his fingers. "I'm not sure if –"

"Just to be thorough," he said, the smoothness of his interruption belying his nervous movements. "We're going to have to revisit everything, you understand, especially under the circumstances of Mr. Carlisle's death."

_Whatever you said_. Millie took a deep breath, and spoke. "That night... started off normal enough. Rob came home late from work, and went straight to bed. I checked up on Timmy – our son – before turning in, myself." She focussed on the pen, while her mind dredged up memories of (_Rob and Tim and blood and black eyes_) the night of the fire. "I woke up some time later, about an hour before midnight."

"Was there anything in particular that woke you up?" Dean asked. "Any, uh, sounds, disturbances, such-like?"

"No... I just... woke up, I suppose. Rob wasn't in bed anymore, so I got up, called for him." The pen. She would focus on the pen. She would _not _break down. "He wasn't in the bathroom either, so I decided to check in Timmy's nursery, just across from our bedroom. I went in, and, I –" She paused, closing her eyes.

"And?" Dean prompted. If she wasn't deeply mistaken, he sounded just as nervous as she felt.

"He was there." Millie opened her eyes again, fighting to keep her voice steady. "He was there, with Timmy, and the fire started. I just.... I grabbed Timmy and ran out. We just about managed to make it outside."

"And... your husband, he didn't follow?"

"He... I don't know. Things were such a blur; I don't really what remember what happened to Rob then, just that he wasn't there when I was outside the house."

The pen finally stilled in his hand. "Mrs. Carlisle... you have to realise that we need to know _everything_. It's not... in the investigation's, uh, best _interest_, if you leave out anything, however trivial it may seem to you."

Millie felt an irrational stab of panic (_oh lord, he knows, they know, and it might just become __**real**__though it's not, notrealnotreal_), but it soon morphed into a helpless anger. "It wasn't exactly a situation where you would expect somebody to observe small details, Agent," she said. "Things were chaotic. I just reacted."

Dean looked back at her calmly. "I agree, Mrs. Carlisle. However, you _were_ aware enough to reach past your husband and make sure your son was safe with you, so, pardon me, but it seems like a rather long stretch that you can't remember _anything_ about what your husband did after the fire started."

She returned his gaze with almost equal calmness; the anger seemed to be helping, it was keeping the panic at bay. "What exactly are you insinuating, Dean?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Nothing, ma'am. I just need to know–"

"I've told you all I know about the fire," she cut in. "So, if you have no more questions..."

If he had gotten the clear suggestion in her tone, he didn't show it. "Was there anything strange about your husband that night?" he persisted, and she fancied a sort of manic intensity enter his eyes. "Was he behaving any different? What about his eyes?"

_Black eyes, black eyes – theyknowthey__**know**_**. **"I'm afraid I don't see the point behind these questions." Just who was this person, really? Aunt Holly had let him in, and she vaguely remembered him flashing at her what had seemed like a fairly legitimate ID... "Can I have a look at your identification again, please?"

He reached into his jacket as if he was going to oblige her request, before sighing and shaking his head. "His eyes were black, weren't they."

Her jaw locked; the panic was now overwhelming.

He now seemed to lose all pretences of suavity, and gazed upon her with a sort of horrified fascination. "You made a... deal?"

The paralysis broke; Millie jumped to her feet, visibly shaking. "I don't know _what_ you are, _Dean_ – and I'm not sure I want to – but you'd better get the hell out of here unless you want me to call the police." Oh lord, where was Timmy? She was pretty sure that she remembered Aunt Holly offering to take care of him upstairs during the interview, but everything was in a terrible tailspin, and she needed to get to her son _now _–

"You... actually made a fucking _deal_." He rose to his feet as well, and now there was no trace of the polite movie-investigator, the facade quickly dissolving in a fast-bubbling anger. "You condemned your son to a _demon_."

Millie flinched at '_demon_', but stood her ground. "Get out!" she shrieked. "Get out and take your psychotic nonsense _with_ you!"

Dean glared back at her, refusing to budge an inch. "Psychotic nonsense? What's _not_ psychotic nonsense, lady, is the fact that your house was just burned down by a demon possessing your husband, and that you're lucky to have gotten away alive!" His nostrils flared. "Did the bastard fe- give... give your son _blood_?"

_Cut wrist... open... seeping blood... into Timmy... _Millie stared back at him dumbly, tears rising to her eyes.

He seemed to deflate in front of her eyes, sinking back onto the couch and running his hands through his hair. The sound of quick footsteps resounded on the wooden stairs in the silence that followed, and Aunt Holly appeared in the living room, concerned and a little frantic. "Millie? What was all the shouting about?"

Dean looked up as if to answer, but Millie yelled before he could utter a word, "Don't leave Timmy _alone_!" The shaking had gotten worse; she felt as if a permanent chill had enveloped her (_freezing, freezing, oh, how she wished she could freeze and go back in time and __**undo**__ –_)

"Oh, dearie, I wasn't planning to," Aunt Holly said, and Millie started, for that voice sounded like Aunt Holly's, yet _nothing_ like her, oily and smug and dripping with malice. "Aunt Holly...?"

She smiled pleasantly at Millie, skin around the eyes crinkling in that amiable manner which Millie had always associated with love and generosity and concern and happy childhood, but her eyes, _her eyes_ –

"Well, whaddya know," Dean said quietly from beside her. She hadn't even heard him move, when did he – "The Black-Eyed Bastards are back for an encore performance."

Aunt Holly's – no, no, _its_ – gaze shifted onto Dean, and the smile grew impossibly wider. "Dean," it said. "Long time no see." It cocked its head. "Gotta say, it's been kind of boring without a Winchester or two to send to hell."

Millie backpedalled warily, feeling like she was a heartbeat away from being driven totally insane by panic and fear. The thing that looked like her aunt raised its hand in her direction, but Dean had already moved, brandishing what looked like a small silver flask in one hand, and a long serrated knife in the other. He flung the contents of the flask on... _it_, and was that _acid_, because, really, the liquid steamed where it hit skin, drew screams of anguish from her aunt's throat...

Using the distraction, Dean bore down the knife he had in his other hand, but the thing was faster, and it caught Dean's forearm before he could succeed, the knife's tip barely centimetres from its neck. It caught his other arm as it came round to try and break its grip. The two of them seemed caught at an impasse, the thing's hold so strong that Dean's features twisted with the pain and effort, while it barely flinched at all.

Millie broke out of her temporary paralysis and skirted the warring duo, stumbling toward the stairs (_toward Timmy_). She faltered as she heard a sickening, dry _snap_, followed by Dean's pained yell, and it was all the time the intruder needed.

An invisible force, like a moving wall of air, slammed into her, and pinned her to the living room wall farthest from the stairwell. Millie hung there, all the breath knocked out of her lungs, her heels inches from the floor. She looked up, gasping desperately, to see Dean pinned in a similar manner to the opposite wall, his left forearm bent at an unnatural angle, his eyes closed and features taut with pain. The knife and the flask lay on the floor below his feet, and, oh _lord_, how did things come to _this_, she had to wake up and find the whole thing had been a nightmare, she _had_ to –

"Well, now, _that's_ better," the thing said, beaming. "Now we can actually do this in a more civilised manner."

A string of garbled curses came from Dean, only to be cut short by pained grunts as the thing looked back at him – the plaster was cracking where Dean was being pushed further into the wall, and the thing was actually moving them with its _mind_, and what was that word again, _tele_-something... well, whatever it was, it belonged in bad science-fiction, not in real life, not in real, not in, not (_I need to get to Timmy, I need to get to Timmy, I need to – _)

The thing now turned to her, and the pleasant smile was intact. "Now, dear, no need to _panic_." It paused, cocking its head. "Well, not yet, anyway." It spread its hands. "So – let's take this nice and slow, shall we? After all, with the Apocalypse nigh, I think _I_ can afford to."

One hand waved abruptly in her direction, and suddenly she wasn't able to breathe, oh _god_, her desperate gasps seemed unable to pull in any oxygen, like somebody had lodged a physical obstruction in her airway, and her last thoughts, scrambled and frantic, were _no, no, I can't leave Timmy to them, I can't – _before her consciousness splintered, and all was lost to darkness.


	6. Chapter 5

_**Five**_

_The count moves inexorably on, and you think._

_(_And so it comes to the question of existence._)_

_Why are you here, she had asked. The question is ridiculous; if you can't remember anything outside of Hell, how can you know why you got there in the first place? Maybe because you __**are**__dead, as she had insisted? Maybe you __**did**__ have a life before this, a sinner's life perhaps, and now you have been condemned to an afterlife down under. Maybe there __**is**__ no life to go back to, no one looking for you or even trying, maybe that brother she mentioned is standing over your grave, right now; maybe the only remnants of what you were, are the ones that exist in his memory. _

_Except, it doesn't quite feel that way._

_(_It feels like rebirth._)_

_For all the horror that surrounds you, it feels like you are... waiting. Suspended, left to stew in a pain that constantly laps at the edges of rational thought, never to completely overwhelm. But for what, exactly, though? What purpose could you possibly serve in such a place? Without memory, without awareness? _

_(_Without eternal punishment?_)_

_You try to focus on your last conversation with Ruby, to tease some sense out of her words. She had spoken about destiny, about inevitability, about the futility of fighting against some 'pre-ordained power'. She could've meant – once again – the hopelessness of your situation, indirectly discouraging you from looking to her for help, for escape. She could've been asking you to accept your captivity, but it still doesn't explain __**why**__, and answers don't look to be easily forthcoming. It's like that old question again: why are we here at all? Why do we do the things we do? What ends do we serve? Several million intricate human patterns, each one unique, interwoven to form a giant, organic web that also manages to be a foam-universe with several thousand self-sufficient bubble-universes at the same time... impossibly complicated, insanely beautiful – but for what?_

_(_To eventually traverse realms removed from mundane mortality?_)_

_You know the answer, of course: that there's none. One lived life in the pursuit of self-serving goals that supplemented a bigger purpose: to exist, to observe. Questions are the fuel in the engine of man's endless endeavours; the answers never do really matter more than the questions that lead to them. _

_Does the reason for why you are where you are matter more than your actual present situation? _

_Maybe, maybe not. But without the means to get an answer, you have no choice but to find one. _

_(_To put aside the hope of rescue._)_

_This pain, this suspension, this endlessly regular symphony of agony, you realise, could be nothing more than a turning point – a place to weigh and consider and decide. Clearly, you have two options in front of you: one, you can remain like this forever, waiting, the waves of pain slowly but surely eroding your remaining vestiges of self-awareness; two, you can stop hunkering and face this pain, use it to make yourself stronger in the quest to find your true purpose in this place. _

_In other words, you can grow up._

_(_Acceptance of the problem always precedes its solution._)_

_It seems a little hilarious at first, to consider 'growing up' when you are quite clearly completely cut off from the world of the living, seemingly condemned to eternal damnation. But if this __**is**__ an afterlife – and it feels like it is, starting with a clean slate – then you can deal with that; to live, in the land of the dead. The prospect is mildly exhilarating._

_Are you strong enough to look past what is happening to you, past the pain and the thunder and the screams? To accept, to make your choice, to __**make**__ your solution, rather than just wait for one?_

_There's only one way to find out._

_(_To eat the pain that's been eating you alive._)_

_The white segues into the waiting storm of your captivity, and the count picks up again, a low drone in the back of your mind. Ruby is standing there, more the focal point of the storm that is waiting to rage both within and without your body than ever before. An anticipatory gleam lights her eye as she looks up at you._

_You smile at her, blood dripping from cracked lips and painting your chin._

_She smiles back, and reaches out one hand to catch your dripping blood. Her skin steams and blisters where the blood spatters against it, but she doesn't flinch. She closes her eyes and curls her extended hand into a fist, lines of red running down her forearm, gouging through the skin, the layers peeling apart. Instead of more blood, a dark miasma seeps from the long wounds, wisps of grey smoke that dance in the heat-haze like they have a life of their own. _

_Ruby opens her eyes again, and they're now filled with a mixture of awe... and accomplishment. "You are ready," she says, and there is a hint of question in her voice._

_For this question, however, you believe you have the answer._

"_Yeah," you reply, your wasted voice distorting the words into something ethereal, "I'm ready."

* * *

_

Bobby Singer slammed down his landline, cursing.

"Dammit, Dean," he muttered, flipping open his cell phone and scrolling through the list of contacts for one of Dean's newer numbers – considering how many hunters seemed to possess dozens of the newfangled things these days, he had been forced to purchase one himself, just to keep track of all of them – worrying. Dean wasn't available at his usual number – something was wrong.

Bobby had soon tried all of Dean's alternate numbers; the boy wasn't picking up any of them, and he was _really _worried, now (_typical, running in without waiting for backup, and damn if I haven't lost twenty-five years just fretting over these idjits_). Dean's call the previous day had been disturbing, to say the least – he had gone on and on about a demon claiming to be Sam, and frankly, Bobby didn't quite know what to make of it. Dean had been a continuous stream of confused denial – Bobby knew how on edge Dean had been all these months, and at one point had been half-inclined to believe that this was a sign of Dean having finally broken down – but too much had happened over the last few years for Bobby to dismiss _anything_, however absurd or outlandish it may sound.

_But it can't be, Bobby,_ Dean had said, and for a moment his bluster had slipped, and he had sounded young, vulnerable and scared out of his wits. _It's __**Sam**__we're talkin' about. He can't have... turned into a __**demon**__. I – he... can't._

Bobby hadn't quite known what to say to that.

He had never heard, even over the course of a long and colourful hunting career, of a soul travelling to Hell leaving its living body intact before; but then again, he hadn't exactly had any precedents for someone coming back from Hell, whole and unscathed and alive, either. And who on earth knew the true workings of the supernatural world? Angels and the apocalypse and the goddamned devil in a war of potentially world-altering magnitude – and, of course, the Winchester boys _would_ be smack in the middle of it.

Bobby sighed and shook his head – best he think of these things when he wasn't pre-occupied with Dean's (_safety_) whereabouts – and looked up another contact on his phone.

This time, thankfully, he was answered almost immediately. "_Hey, Bobby._"

"Joshua, where the hell have ya been?!"

"_Relax, I'm just a few hours out._" The hunter sounded wryly amused. "_Don't worry about Dean, Bobby. He can more than handle himself until I get there._"

Bobby rolled his eyes. Dean was no novice when it came to the supernatural, granted, but Sam or no Sam, the demons were definitely back, and Dean definitely required backup. However, with rumours about the reasons behind Sam's... present _condition_ rampant – most of them deeply unflattering (_and too close to the grisly truth, too close_) – Bobby was left with very few people in the active hunting community that he felt he could trust. Joshua Peters had been the closest that he knew of, and, of course, '_closest_' had also turned out to be '_three states away and in the middle of finishing up a dangerous job_'.

Also, of course, Dean _would_ endeavour to prove that he hadn't a mite of sense in his head, and rush into the job without waiting for Joshua to get there.

"Just... get there as soon as you can," he said. "Dean's gone MIA at the moment – I'm not able to reach him through any of his numbers." He pursed his lips. "I don't have a good feeling about this."

"_I'll be there_." To Bobby's surprise, Joshua laughed. "_Didn't think I'd ever hear __**you**__ sounding so... matronly_."

Bobby manfully resisted the urge to roll his eyes again. Was being an insufferable smartass a pre-requisite for the hunting profession these days? "Just... hurry up, okay? Demons ain't good news, especially after all this time."

"_They never are, Bobby,_" Joshua said seriously. "_I'll call you back when I meet up with Dean_."

"You do that." With that, the call disconnected.

Bobby sighed as he shut his phone and looked up at his vast library of haphazardly arranged books. Now that he was assured Dean would have help, it was time to focus on _his_ role in the whole shindig. He figured he could start with what Dean had told him about the demon he had confronted.

Dean had said that the demon had pretty much _admitted_ to burning down the house of the man it had possessed, although his wife and six-month-old son had managed to survive. Bobby couldn't blame his thoughts travelling immediately to Azazel, and the havoc the demon had caused upon his family and several others, all those years ago. After all, they never did manage to find out exactly what was Azazel's 'master plan'...

Had Sam come back to finish what Azazel had started? Was this what the initial blathering of 'leading a demon army' had meant? And how the hell did all of this tie in with the ongoing piss-fight between the demons and angels?

Questions, too many of 'em, and Bobby hadn't the slightest idea where to start looking for answers.

All he knew was this: if the essence of a man, his spirit, could be torn and manipulated and tainted on earth by demons, no matter how good it had been to start with; if this man partook of demons while still ostensibly _human_, then there was no reason why the demons couldn't take that essence down into the Pit to complete the transformation, sans all the human trappings.

For all that they had fought against it, Sam could very well have met his destiny as their ultimate adversary.

It was a damn shame, Bobby knew, for he still loved the boy like he was his own son – maybe now more than ever. He could understand where Dean's vehement denial was coming from – it was painful to think about all of this, hard to avoid a crushing guilt, the weight of responsibility, that they could've somehow saved Sam; that he needn't have turned to that manipulative demon hussy when Bobby was _there_; that they could've prevented Sam from degenerating into _this_, if they had just been cognisant of what exactly all that had happened was actually doing to Sam, if they just hadn't been fooled by the boy's strong, silent hunter act.

But Bobby was still a practical person, and he knew that that kind of guilt was enough to make a person go insane, if not kill him. It was best not to dwell on such things for long.

If only there was some way he could find out for _sure_...

He sighed again, pulled down his oldest book on summoning rituals, and began to read.

* * *

Dean had somehow always known that his famous last words would be 'well, it had seemed like a good idea at the time.'

He opened his eyes with some difficulty, teeth still gritted. For a moment, the world remained defiantly blurry: agony pulsed up his left arm; his ribs and back felt like they had had an intimate encounter with a battering ram, and every other part of his body was consumed by a constant, nagging ache. He blinked rapidly, willing the pain beneath the surface – he had the demon and its host and the woman and her baby (_and Sam and the angels and the end of the world and the –_) to worry about. Without weapon or immediate backup, broken bones and bruised muscle was going to be the least of his problems (_although the things fucking __**hurt**_).

His vision eventually resolved, and he was immediately met by the decidedly discouraging sight of Millie Carlisle lying in a heap across the room, frazzled, untidy brown locks draped across the face turned in his direction. The barest displacement of those strands as she breathed was the only sign that she was even alive. Certainly she was not going to be of much help, at least for a while. Well, shit.

_So not good_.

Holly Garrison moved into the field of his vision again, matronly smile still intact. Or it _would've_ been matronly, if the eyes hadn't been completely pitch-black. And if she hadn't been fingering his knife, running her hands longingly along the serrated blade.

And, you know, if she hadn't been a demon who had ambushed him. _Again_.

_Man, have I gotten rusty at this_.

Well, okay, that wasn't entirely true. He knew running into a confirmed demon-situation was madness without a plan, without a partner (_without his brother_), but he had been itching to get with the investigation as soon as possible; sitting on his ass, twiddling his thumbs while he waited for Joshua to get there like he was some teenager to be babysat had _definitely_ figured nowhere in his preferred courses of action. No matter what Bobby said.

And if there was a way to find out if Sam –

"Funny that _you_ should be having this," the demon said conversationally. "But I should've known that it would be a Winchester, I guess."

"Oh, great," Dean sneered. "It's not enough that I get Obi-Wanned, but I have to listen to the cryptic monologue, too?"

"Hardly cryptic, Dean," the demon drawled. "We needed this knife, and we've found it – without much trouble, I might add, as you were so kind as to hand-deliver it to us. In such perfect condition, too." The smile widened. "Not to mention the added bonus of being able to kill a mighty Winchester at my leisure."

"Mighty, right." Dean strained against the invisible grip pinning him to the wall, just on principle if nothing else. What, now they needed the _knife_? "And what, did you lose your original keys back home to hell?"

The demon threw its head back and laughed. "This ain't the _Colt_, Dean. I intend to use it exactly for the reason it was originally designed for: kill." It grinned fiercely. "Starting with you, then moving on to your brother."

Dean's heart plummeted. _What?_ Before he could reflect much on the strength of the wards he had placed around Sam's bed back... back _home_, the demon had twisted its grip on the hilt of the knife, the blade pointing downward. "So excuse me if I don't waste any more time in getting to business," it said, raising its hand, the tip of the blade poised at the apex of its deadly arc.

_Just another day in the office, huh. _Dean flinched, ready for the inevitable, hoping the demon was planning to draw it out, because, really, there was no other way he could...

The windows on the far side of the living room exploded.

The demon wavered, startled, and Dean felt the bonds on him loosen. He wasn't sure what exactly had happened, but Dean Winchester wasn't one for letting golden opportunities go by.

Through a shower of splintered glass and debris, he threw himself at Holly Garrison's body, pinning it to the ground. He slammed its knife-wielding hand to the floor, effectively taking the weapon out of play. The demon struggled under his grip, unable to throw him off.

"What?" it said, and the oily smugness was gone, to be replaced by incredulity. "What?"

Dean grinned through gritted teeth (and okay, that arm was starting to _really_ hurt, now – _fuck_!). "Wouldn't want to be spilling my trade secrets all 'round the place like you guys, now, would I," he muttered, before starting on the exorcism ritual. The demon bucked and screamed underneath him, and the part of his brain that wasn't focussed on reciting the ritual, the demon, the pain, or even the idle thought of why the demon hadn't chosen someone a little more to his... tastes to possess (sixty year old matrons was _so_ not his style), fretted over the exploded windows and the distinct sense of somebody else's presence in the room, the sound of approaching footsteps.

_Please let it be Joshua_, that part of his mind prayed, although, really, exploding windows was not exactly the hunter's idea of a successful rescue... no, it seemed like Dean had another supernatural being to deal with... and hey, if it was an angel, wouldn't that be just _great_ – now that the demons were back, maybe the holy douchebags could get off their asses and do what they had originally _claimed_ they were doing –

The demon gave one last, mighty convulsion, before the body arched in a way it probably hadn't for thirty years, the mouth opening in a silent scream. Black smoke billowed out of the face scrunched up in a rictus of agony, whirling above them momentarily before streaming out through the destroyed windows.

Holly Garrison went limp underneath him, still breathing, thankfully, even if it was heavy and laboured (and _no_, he was definitely _not_ letting his mind go _there_ – dammit, he had principles!). He rolled himself off her, thoroughly exhausted (nope, still not going there). He blinked lazily at the ceiling, knowing that he needed to get up, needed to find out who (_or what_) this latest gatecrasher was, needed to get himself fight-ready, but by _god_, all his pain-riddled body wanted to do was sink into comforting oblivion...

His vision of the ceiling was suddenly interrupted by an unhealthy amount of hair and teeth, with two bright eyes set somewhere in between staring into his own.

Dean jerked, startled, before groaning as his back muscles let their displeasure known at the movement. _Definitely not fight-ready. Oh, Sammy, if only you could see me now_. "Hey, Dean," the voice said, male and young and cheery. "You okay?"

"What do you think, Sherlock?" Dean grumbled without thinking. He struggled to get up, only to be stopped by a gentle, if firm, hand on his shoulder. "Not too well, I'd say," the voice replied, still infuriatingly... _happy_. "You take your time getting up, okay? Wouldn't want to make anything worse." The hand gave his shoulder a brief squeeze, before disappearing.

_I don't believe this_. Dean rolled to his side and rested like that for a moment, breathing through pursed lips. He carefully transferred his body weight onto his right elbow and forearm, lifting his head to see a form crouched over Millie, apparently trying to wake her up. She was beginning to stir, and judging by the state she had been in before the attack, it looked like their rescuer was going to have a panic attack or two to quell.

_Speaking of which... _"Who the hell are you?" Dean grunted as he slowly sat up.

The man's head swivelled in his direction. Well... more like _kid_, really – soft features just on the verge of taking on the hard planes of adulthood, bright blue eyes and a grin full of gleaming white teeth, topped by an unruly mop of dirty blond hair – he looked barely twenty. "Just someone who knows what was happening, Dean," he said, smiling. "Good thing I came when I did, huh?"

Dean narrowed his eyes. "Was it you with the exploding windows?"

The kid laughed. "Obviously." Before he could continue, Millie had woken up, blinking and disoriented. Her eyes flicked between the new intruder and Dean a few times, before finally settling on the unconscious form of her aunt's, and widening in terror. She scrabbled back blindly, her mouth opening and closing but no sounds coming out.

"Millie?" the kid said, crouching before her. "Millie! Relax – everything's okay."

Her gaze fixed on him. "Who – what – how can you call this _okay_?" Keeping her back to the wall, she stood up. "Is she – is she still –"

"The demon's out, and Holly will be fine," the kid replied calmly. "I've only come to help, Millie – and so has Dean." He flung an arm in Dean's direction. "It's not safe for you here – or for Timmy, really." All traces of good humour slipped off his face as he stood up again, looming over Millie. "I'd suggest you take your son with you and leave with Dean immediately."

Dean and Millie stared at him with varying degrees of incredulity on their faces. Millie was the first to break the silence. "And _why _should I do that?" Her voice rose an octave with every word. "How do I know you're trustworthy?"

The kid shrugged. "Look around you. Decide. Either you leave yourself open for another demon attack, or you can do something constructive to protect your son." He smiled. "It's simple, I'd say."

Millie shuddered at the words 'your son', and struggled to her feet. The newcomer watched impassively as she cast one last furtive look at him before dashing up the stairs. "Hope she remembers to pack for an overnight stay," he remarked, once she was out of sight.

_Okay, that's it_. "And what makes you think I'm going to be giving her joyrides all 'round the place?" Dean growled, grabbing his knife with his good hand as he rose to his feet, swaying slightly.

"Oh, not all 'round the place," came the casual reply. "You could drop her off at Missouri's – she has all the basic protection up in her home, a working knowledge of the supernatural, and she'll provide a safe haven for Millie and her son till we finish this job." He grinned at Dean. "I was going to suggest Bobby, but I figured, hey, a woman and her baby, right? A salvage yard's probably not the best idea."

Dean's jaw locked. There was only one way this stranger knew all of this. "Christo," he said, and his suspicions were confirmed as the kid flinched and his eyes flashed black.

_No. Not now, no._

Dean hadn't even realised that he was hefting the knife in his hand when the kid put up his palms, backing away slightly. "Hey, hey, Dean," he said. "Listen, man! Just give me a chance to explain, alright?"

Dean had had enough of useless back-and-forths with demons; if this one had an explanation it had better make it quick, because Dean was going to –

The kid took Dean's hesitation as an encouraging sign and began to speak hastily. "Our last meeting didn't work out so well, and, okay, I get that I was quite the _dues ex machina _back there, but I needed to wait for the right moment to convince you of my true intentions." His expression took upon an earnestness that Dean recognised all too well, amplified by the floppy hair and the bright eyes (_friggin' demons sure know which buttons to push_). "I need your help, bro. Now more than ever."

Dean quite literally wavered, conflicting instincts and emotions and memory pushing him into a veritable corner, the underlying physical pain pulsing through his body only feeding the claustrophobia, making it more unbearable. The last time he had trusted in a demon's intentions... well, it hadn't worked out so great. But what do you say to a demon that claims to be your _brother_?

'_Fuck off_' came readily to his mind (_because, really, demon? Sam? Still not buying it_), but his present situation demanded that he took off as soon as possible, internal debates and misgivings be damned. The ruckus created was bound to attract onlookers and the real authorities pretty soon, not to mention demons rising out of the woodwork to target him and his only real weapon against them (_and Sam_). And he... wasn't exactly in great shape, himself.

NotSam was still looking at him steadily, patiently, when Dean made up his mind. "We need to get moving fast," Dean said, and he hated himself silently for giving into glib trust once again. "I hope you know what you're doing."

A wide grin split NotSam's face. "Not really, but hey. When have we ever _not_ just winged it?" He paused, cocked his head. "And... I've been dying to ask, exactly how did you manage to restrain the demon long enough to finish the exorcism?"

Dean couldn't help a smug smirk from curving his lips. "Devil's Trap painted on my chest," he said, and okay, admittedly it was a weird idea, and was more of a back-up plan if anything went intractably wrong, but hey, it had worked, right?

NotSam laughed, his whole frame shaking with mirth. "So you hug your adversary into submission these days?" He grinned. "Getting quite campy there, Dean."

"Oh, shut up."


	7. Chapter 6

_**A/N:**_ My heartfelt thanks to those who've read/reviewed!

And, folks, this chapter is where I begin to navigate the uncharted waters I warned you about in Chapter 1. Please do let me know if it makes sense!

Also, coincidentally, this has officially become my longest fanfic to date. I only pray that I can see this through to its end, but with the show currently being seventy-five million different kinds of awesome, I should have no problem in sustaining my interest in the fandom – and hence the motivation to write.

* * *

_**Six**_

_The feel of the hot ground under the soles of your feet is strangely comforting._

_The grotesque wounds on your feet and hands are barely scabbed over, breaking and bleeding every time you stumble and fall to the ground; so much so they are now caked with crusted mud. The granules grind into inflamed tissue as you doggedly carry on, but you don't notice the pain much anymore. This is far from denying its existence, though._

_It is merely acceptance that pain is a part of who you are._

_Ruby leads on, always patient, always watching. To where you do not know; the features of the land do not change however far you travel. Every time you rasp out a question regarding the eventual destination, you are met with cryptic smiles and unfathomable answers. "It is up to you," she would say, with a shrug, and you suspect that whatever lesson she has set out to teach you is not over._

_It is interesting, this role that Ruby has assumed: that of a mentor – more frustrating than most, you are sure – always on the sidelines, guiding you with words, with gestures; never forthright, yet you still __**believe**__. _

_Believe that she is helping you, because that belief, that __**trust**__, is all that you can give._

_She waited while you were released from the chains – a sudden event, although it is difficult to think of any way you could've prepared for it – collapsing to the ground, curling around the excruciating pain as your body slowly, inexorably stitched itself together: joints gradually sliding into place, overstretched muscles loosening, lips of torn-open gashes rejoining. She waited like a ghost in the periphery, never helping, yet never leaving, either – and in your agony, you found that constant presence a form of perverse blessing._

_When you were able to finally support yourself on tortured, atrophied muscles, she began to walk. And you followed. Stumbling, staggering, occasionally falling, but always going._

"_Why are you following me, Sam?" she asks suddenly, and you stagger to a stop, blinking hot, stinging sweat out of your eyes. _

"_What kind of question is that supposed to be?" you ask incredulously. _

"_An honest kind," she says, shrugging. "I don't remember asking you to do anything."_

"_Then what do you want me to do?" The frustration is growing now, strong enough to fuel your muscles to lock into place, lifting your frame, brushing aside the exhaustion. "What am I supposed to __**do**__?"_

"_Why are you asking me this?" she counters. A smirk pulls at the corner of her lips. "It was always like this, wasn't it, Sam? You, poor baby, are so __**lost**__ without somebody telling you what to do – whether you choose to follow or not." She walks a little closer to you, and suddenly she seems to be dissolving in front of your eyes, her form blurring at the edges into black smoke; you blink, and she's whole again, what is this you don't understand, you just want to __**understand**__ – "So much for all that talk about independence and growing up – when it actually comes down to it, there's nothing that scares you more than freedom."_

"_You're not making sense." _

"_Of course I'm not." She rolls her eyes. "You are __**free**__, Sam, to do as you want, to be as you want. I'm not stopping you; nobody is." _

_The frustration is now fury – it coils within you, whispering into your ear like an old, familiar friend – the strength now power; the conviction now __**decision**__._

"_It is not so much freedom if I am not allowed to leave Hell, is it," you counter, and you are not surprised to find that your voice no longer rasps, or breaks. The power tingles through every part of your body, and you revel in it, for it is the first pleasantness you have felt in millennia. _

_Ruby seems to consider that for a moment, seemingly oblivious to the changes in your countenance (_but she knows, oh, she _knows_!_). "There is that," she concedes. "But maybe you can allow __**yourself**__ – have you considered that?"_

"_I don't have to consider anything." The words are bitten off, ice-cold even in the oppressive heat. You don't need her, you realise, not anymore. _Go forth_, that voice whispers in your ear – and there, __**there**__, you think, is that sweet breath of sanity you've been desperately searching for! – and the power wells; bubbles, seeking release – _for your self is all you have, and all that you need.

_Ruby looks disappointed. "Then, Sam, you can follow me all you like; but let me tell you: you aren't going to get anywhere."_

_Fury consumes, and there are no more words, nor any need for them; all is light and fire and the force of your rage disturbing the stagnant air, stirring it into a tempest – your only focus: Ruby; your only goal: annihilation, cleansing._

_The landscape is blurred and distorted as you deliver the storm it has promised for aeons past, drawing strength from the low-hanging clouds crackling with ions, providing a ready medium for their destructive electricity – and you throw it all at the inexplicably distinct and undisturbed form of Ruby. _

_The gale beats against her, and then __**through**__ her, and the whole world is lost in nonsensical chaos. The energy seems never-ending: it flows through you rather than stemming from your reserves, and there appears no end to the length of time you can spend in this manner; you can go on for eternity as an unstoppable force of nature – _

_Eternity lasts for but an instant: inexplicably, you are burnt out; the energy deserts you, leaving you raw and spent on the shores of its boundless reserves. The dust settles, the haze clears – the surroundings resolve into comprehension once again, and if you had any left-over capacity for astonishment, you would marvel at the scene they present._

_The storm, the clouds: they are gone. The sky clears, and it is a perfect, beautiful blue – undisturbed, stretching from horizon to horizon. You find that you are lying on your back (_and when did the swell stop, and when did you stop floating on the eddies of its magnificent course?_) and the ground smells sweet and damp. The low, distant rumbling and the constant cacophony of agonised screams is all but gone: the only sound is that of your own breathing, fast and restless, and it is almost as terrifying in how alien it sounds. _

_Can this be – have you – can you even __**dare**__ to – ?_

_Slowly, clutching handfuls of what seems like dew-drenched grass on either side, you sit up. The green stretches for as far as you can see, rolling hillocks and gentle valleys glowing in some form of sunshine, a cool breeze ruffling the lush landscape. You can scarcely allow yourself to think that you are free from Hell, but it... it seems so, and – !_

_Your fledgling hopes are crushed when your eyes alight on a figure a few dozen yards in front of you._

_It is Ruby, exactly as you had left her before that sweet surge of power. A strange maniacal intensity lights her eye as she gazes at you, and really, what does this all mean? You crave for the all-cleansing rage, half-hating it in its betrayal, as it has left you even more confused than before, and sore with need. _

"_There!" she cries suddenly, and her voice echoes almost painfully in the silence. "That is why you are special, Sam Winchester, that is why it has to be __**you**__!"_

"_Where are we?" you ask, dismayed to find your voice has been reduced to a croak once again. _

_She cocks her head in that mocking way you are used to by now. "In Hell, of course." She laughs. "You don't really know much about it still, do you."_

No!_ You try desperately to call back that blessed fury, tearing out your right handful of grass from the ground, meaning to crush the blades in your grip. To your surprise, the grass feels much heavier than you expected – your hand is pulled down by the weight of it. You look at it, horrified to find that what you are clutching is hair – damp, blonde, knotted – and from it hangs a head without its body. The features are distinctly female – well-formed and delicate, even if covered by a fine layer of grime – _

_The eyes open, and the lips part in a savage grin. "Well, hello, Sam," it says, and you are struck by a sudden wave of intense familiarity – _

_And then it begins to laugh – high and clear and hysterical – while the features begin to decay right in front of your eyes, the skin peeling off dying flesh that later falls out in chunks, eyes rolling about madly before one of them falls out, accompanied by the exudation of a purulent fluid that seems to substitute for blood, for it then begins to leak from every other orifice of the face, dripping on to your person, scalding your skin... and still the laughter continues. _

_Repulsed, you fling the head as far as you can; but even long after it has crossed the horizon, terror still seizes your heart, and that horrible laughter still echoes in your ears.

* * *

_

Dean really wasn't looking forward to confronting Joshua about this.

The Impala coasted along the highway to Lawrence, KA, Mille Carlisle and Timmy in the back, NotSam at the wheel, driving with an authority that made Dean want to fling himself across the bench seat and strangle him. The painkillers he had taken (_that NotSam had made him take_) still had him feel a bit woozy, granted, but he was good _enough_ to handle _his _baby, thank you very much –

NotSam glanced at him, smiling (_no, godammit, he's smirking, the smug little bastard_). "Are you feeling better?"

And, okay, Dean was _really_ getting tired of this pseudo-concern: "are you better?" and "are you okay?" had been near-constant refrains since they had left Stratford, leaving behind a very confused and a very mortified Holly Garrison; since NotSam had tended to his arm in a frighteningly sure and efficient application of first-aid and forced what seemed like a couple-dozen painkillers on him; since a still-terrified Millie (catching sight of the impressively-stocked weapons collection in the Impala's trunk is apparently not a great way to soothe frazzled nerves: who would've thought?) bundled herself and her baby into the backseat. _You're not my brother_, Dean wanted to snarl, and 'sides, it wasn't like he was going to take such crap lying down even if it _was_ Sam –

At least the baby was quiet. Mostly.

Dean sighed. Nope. He was definitely not looking forward to confronting Joshua about this. Or Bobby. _Especially_ Bobby. "How about you hand the keys over and find out for sure?"

"Not yet."

Dean locked a curse behind a fierce snarl. "Listen, buddy, this has gone on long _enough_ –"

"Hush!" NotSam cast an admonishing glare at him, and the very absurdity of being _hush_-ed (_by a demon, and have I stopped mentioning this has gone way too far?_) had Dean snapping his mouth shut. "They've finally fallen asleep," NotSam continued, gesturing to the occupants of the backseat. "Don't wake them up."

"Oh, I can see you're _very_ concerned about them," Dean said. "It explains why you possessed the husband, tried to kill the mother and feed demon-blood to the baby." He shifted in his seat, beginning to feel the pain trickle back into his extremities, and, more importantly, the sharpening of his mental faculties. "Care to explain that?" he growled.

NotSam did not reply immediately; his eyes were fixed on the road ahead, a mere flicker of a movement along his jaw the only sign he had heard Dean at all. At length, he finally said, "I'm sorry, Dean. I know how what happened must look to you, but it's not the same thing. I never intended to kill – I did not have any need to." He smiled at Dean, melancholy. "Would you believe that I am – have always been – wholly on your side?"

"You're not the first demon to have told me that."

NotSam laughed. More than anything, Dean felt, it was that laughter that unnerved him. Mini-explosions in their own right, his sudden outbursts seemed to draw from a non-existent humour; or worse, from one that was much, much darker that Dean was wont to appreciate. He sounded _insane_.

"Ruby?" NotSam said. He shook his head and snorted. "It always comes back to her, doesn't it."

"Yeah, funny how that is, huh? I mean, she's _only_ the bitch who started you on demon-blood and dragged you into Hell."

NotSam smiled. "You know, such sarcasm's very unbecoming, Dean. I'm gonna chalk this one up to the painkillers, yeah?" He was quiet for a while, as though trying to collect his thoughts, before he started to speak again. "When I said I'm on your side, I meant against Lucifer, the Apocalypse. Dean, in Hell, you have no idea... the kind of systems, the _hierarchy_ in place over there... not all of demon-kind is rallying behind Lillith in her mission to break the seals. It's kind of part of the reason why there's been minimal activity from down under recently."

He spoke with a quiet intensity that Dean found painfully familiar and frightening at the same time. His hand moved toward the hilt of the knife in his jacket once again. "I would've thought that the demons would be psyched about getting their creator back."

"Not really." He sighed. "I'm not entirely sure, not even now, but I think it has more to do with a loss of faith. You see, Lucifer's been locked away for millennia since – since when the concept of 'time' didn't even exist, and for several demons now his very existence is in doubt. I mean, for ages his return has been promised, but even in the darkest days of mankind's existence, in circumstances where opportunities seemed ripe for the taking, _nothing happened_. For many in whom the faith wasn't particularly strong, he just ceased to exist. Or even if he did, it was only as a legend, never to rise again and deliver the Apocalypse.

"It's a situation a lot of the higher-end demons have only been more than happy to take advantage of; the lack of a leader uniting all demons under one cause has led to there being several, pulling them into several warring factions." He laughed suddenly, making Dean start. "Sound familiar, Dean? Demon-kind as an allegory of the human condition – or should I say, vice-versa?"

"Save your philosophy; you still haven't told me what I want to know."

NotSam's nose wrinkled. "Touchy, touchy." After a pause, he continued, "Like I said, several of the more enlightened demons began to collect followers of their own – and with the kind of power there is to be harnessed, each of them wanted to be lord and master of all of Hell. Azazel was one of them. One of the more canny, and more successful ones, I should say."

Dean frowned. "Yellow-eyes?"

His companion smirked. "Yes, the yellow-eyed demon – although, you know, his eyes weren't originally yellow. He, now, he _knew_. He knew the truth behind the legend of Lucifer. He knew about Lillith, about the seals and about the impending Apocalypse. He also knew that if Lucifer was to rise again, it would not only mean the end of the human race, but also spell doom for demons, for the devil held both in deep contempt. He wasn't going to let that happen, and planned long and hard to counter what was then being passed as mere prophecy.

"His first step was to ensure that he had an army, a sizable army that was loyal to him – although, of course, loyalty is a slippery and unreliable entity in Hell; still, he did enough to convince his followers that he did not suffer traitors lightly – and then he proceeded to his next, possibly more important step: marking out his... can I say, descendants? – among the humans. After all, if at all Lillith rose to break the seals, he needed someone topside with the wherewithal to stop her. And that's where the, uh, 'special kids' come in."

Dean noted the awe and a trace of something else he couldn't exactly pin-point – Regret? Sadness? – in NotSam's voice as he narrated. But more than anything, it was the familiarity that threw him off-balance, scattering his pre-conceived notions like so much dust in a strong wind. "So he did all this to counter Lucifer's rising," he said slowly. "So what? It shouldn't make Yellow-Eyes any better, if all he was looking for was ensuring that he remained head honcho. It doesn't justify _anything_." Not any of those deaths, not any of all the lives ruined, destruction spawned (_Sam turning into something not meant for existence in a normal world_).

"I know it doesn't." NotSam gave him a sidelong glance. "I never said Azazel did all this out of the goodness of his heart, or out of concern for human beings. He had power, and all he was interested in was making sure it stayed with him."

Dean's jaw clenched. "And so where did _you_ come into all of this? What – what happened to you – what does it –" He closed his eyes and shook his head, wondering if he had been mistaken in his judgement of his mental faculties. It could be the only explanation for the inexplicable moisture pricking at the corners of his eyes – "I mean, what's the deal with the demon-blood? What did it do to you?" (_Except turn my brother into a monster, oh lord no, I can't –_)

There was now a sad, heavy gravity to NotSam's gaze that belied the soft youth of his face (_that he was borrowing_). "Lucifer's a fallen angel," he said. "Neither angel, nor quite a demon. And so what do you call something's that not human, but not a demon, either? Do you count it among the Fallen?"

A strange fear rose up the back of Dean's throat. "What are you talking about?"

"All demons were once human, Dean. The thing is, even as humans, each and every one of you have the capacity to turn into demons without going to Hell and the centuries of transformation." He smiled thoughtfully. "You'd be surprised to know that much of the transformation is more biological than theological or supernatural."

"Croatoan," Dean said, and NotSam nodded. "Yeah – although those demons are pretty much close to useless, seeing as they retain most of their human fallibilities and are easily killed."

"So is that what Yellow-Eyes was doing?" Dean stared at him. "Planting demon viruses with his blood?"

"In a manner of speaking, I guess," NotSam replied, frowning. "I think... okay, this is a theory, but it makes sense – I think that Azazel used his blood to create a... shall we say, _immunity_ to sulphur in the special kids, maybe _seeding_ them with prior exposure, so that when they get a dose of demon-blood in the future, their bodies have already become accustomed to it, and do not react dramatically. Instead, it only furthers their inherent potential, their demon-given _abilities_. Another way to do this, of course, would be a prolonged demonic possession, considering your blood physiology gets altered temporarily when you've got a demon inside of you –"

"Whoa, House, _wait_," Dean interrupted. "Your – _Sam's_ blood tested negative for the Croatoan virus back in River Grove."

NotSam took a deep breath, and Dean could tell he was going to start on another lecture. (_Geez, not even in school did I pay this much attention to Biology_, but he had to know, he had to _know_ –) "First off, the, uh, sulphur that's transmitted through the blood is not exactly a virus – it's more like a foreign substance that the body reacts to, like... like an allergy. The defence system in our bodies kicks into action against this perceived threat, starts producing antibodies that react with the sulphur... most likely, what the good doctor saw in River Grove was the products of that reaction. She, of course, couldn't spot it in _my_ blood – see, at that time," he added with a sardonic smile, "I was already halfway demonic."

Dean shuddered, unable – and unwilling – to hold in his revulsion. "But why – why you? And Andy, Ava and the others – the deals, how were they chosen?" His jaw worked as he gritted his teeth. "And Ruby – you, in Hell – why have you come back?" _Why have you come back a monster, why do you carry on the work of the bastard that destroyed our family, killed our parents – _

"I told you," NotSam said, his eyes shifting back onto the road, "I'm against Lucifer's rising."

"You're a _demon_, Sam," Dean said, and _there_, he had _said_ it, though the words hurt like each syllable was a right hook to the jaw, "You're Azazel's heir. What you're doing... it's not –"

"Not right?" NotSam snorted. "Some things never change, huh."

"Sam –"

"You don't get it, Dean!" Suddenly it was just _Sam_, frustrated and absorbed and intense, not the smug, insane demon. "There are so many other things involved in this, the last seal and Lillith and I need – _need_ to be here; and, more than anything else, I need my body back."

Dean unclenched his jaw. "Well, you're not going to get it."

For the first time, genuine incredulity registered on NotSam's borrowed features.

"Don't act all surprised," Dean growled. "You get back your body, you get back all your special little powers, is that it? I'd – I'd rather Sam _die _than becoming... _this_."

"Dean, I can do this." NotSam was still calm, but there was the faintest hint of exasperated agitation underlying his words. "I – am not Azazel; I'm not a demon. I am... and always will be, a human who spent more than his share of time in Hell." He glanced at Dean significantly, and really, Dean had had _enough_ of Sam's shitty superior attitude – "I can be different; I _am_ different. Maybe one day I can tell you why exactly I have to continue the line, Dean, why we were chosen as we were; but know for now that I have never intended to kill, nor am I going on some half-crazy plan to jumpstart my own idea of Armageddon." His expression was completely settled now, calm, focussed and filled with a manic determination that Dean could only find all too familiar. "I believe I can defeat them while playing their own game. And for that, Dean," he cast an imploring glance at him, "I need your help, man."

Dean turned his head away, suddenly very tired. Tired of the fear that pulsed through him as he heard the note of quiet self-confidence in NotSam's voice – familiar, yes, but with a new hardness to it, a will not born out of childlike stubbornness but chiselled over centuries out of solid stone; tired of the failure that it reminded him of, _his_ failure; tired of watching both of them fall and being unable to do anything to stop the descent.

Sam had fallen, Sam had gone to Hell, Sam was a demon, and Dean –

Dean had _failed_.

Despair washed over him then, abetted by the pain that was slowly ramping up to close to its former intensity, and he closed his eyes against his tears. NotSam did not speak further, and most of rest of the journey was finished in silence; Dean was woken up from an uneasy sleep he had fallen into at some point by Timmy bawling from the backseat. He blinked, sitting up and grimacing at the pain that lanced down his splintered arm, at his stiff and aching muscles.

The car had stopped, and NotSam... was staring at him.

"We're here already?" Dean glanced out the window and back at NotSam. "You drove the whole stretch without a stop?"

"Stopped for gas and food a couple of times," he said, opening the door. "Didn't want to disturb you." He was now making a conscious effort to avoid Dean's eyes, his demeanour considerably more subdued. He proceeded to help Millie and Timmy out of the car, as Dean eased his aching body out the passenger door.

NotSam approached the threshold of Missouri's house, but before he could so much as lift his hand to ring the bell, the front door opened, and a portly old woman stepped out with a smile on her lips. "Glad you could make it here so soon," she said, and Dean literally staggered with the force of his disbelief, for it was the same lady he had met at the remains of the Carlisle house a couple of days ago; the lady who had told him the whole sordid story –

"Dean," she said, looking at him, "You don't look very well, son."

"But Missouri –" NotSam began, looking baffled.

"I'm so sorry, but Miss Moseley is no more." Both of them stared at her, and she sighed. "She died three years ago – fatal heart attack."

_Missouri... dead?_ Dean couldn't seem to bring himself to reconcile with this, even with all the earth-shattering revelations that seemed to be pelting him from all sides recently, and _lord_, it had been _years_, and he hadn't even checked; he hadn't even _known_ that the very woman who had first told their father 'the truth' nearly three decades ago, the woman who had been partially responsible for starting them on this, was _gone_ –

The door behind the lady opened wider, and another person – a man, tall and hulking – emerged to stand at her side.

"Joshua!" Dean blurted, and the veteran Hunter smiled grimly at him.

"We need to have a talk, Dean."


	8. Interlude: Chuck's Story

_**A/N**_: I'm not entirely happy with this, but after a lot of tweaking and sitting on it for weeks together, I've decided to put it up anyway, so I can get the plot moving again in the next chapter (which should be up much quicker).

I'd also like to humbly dedicate this fic to **Pixel-0**, whose _Supernatural_ stories blow my mind, and make me set my own standards ever higher.

_**Interlude: Chuck's Story**_

There's a funny thing about stories.

You start off with a grand idea, overarching plots, ground-breaking concepts and all that jazz, but eventually, as you keep writing, you find that those things don't matter as much as _whom_ you're writing about. These people you create in your head start off as yours, but as they grow in stature and personality, as they begin to develop layer after layer until you're hardly able to recognise them anymore yourself, they become living, breathing beings that stalk the hallways of your imagination, always asking for newer, better challenges. Love them, hate them, even _fear_ them - it doesn't matter. They _own_ you.

Every story worth its while, at its very heart, revolves around its characters and the relationships between them. My - story, chronicle, drunken fantasy, what-have-you - started off with two brothers, a family, thrown into a charade of events that quickly blew up into something mind-bogglingly _huge_, with literally millions of other players and thousands of issues cropping up in the middle, the lines of responsibility, history and fealty tangling into one gigantic, messy knot.

Eventually, though, this story also ends with just the same two brothers. Family, from start to finish.

No matter how big the stories get, it's _those_ characters, _these_ relationships that finally count for something.

Family's usually pretty big in these kinds of things. Right from the story of Cain and Abel, whose feuding and jealousy set the tone for the history of humanity to the central themes of various mythologies - the brothers Monster Slayer and the Child of Water in Navajo lore, the epic battle between the Pandava brothers and their hundred cousins, the Kauravas, in the _Mahabharata_, the duty to his brother and country that had Horatio in the forefront in the battle of Troy, hell, even the Weasley siblings in _Harry Potter_ - familial ties have pulled these characters, influenced their decisions, changed the course of history. It's easy to forget this in the face of all the hubris and intrigue that follow afterward, but hey. The writer _knows_. He knows what's important here, because his characters are playing his hands over the paper like puppet strings.

- So. My story? Right. My story.

Admittely, I take - okay, my characters - take the whole family-influencing-events angle too far. Biblical omens, angels, demons, the whole damn Apocalypse, all hinging on an often-dysfunctional relationship between two brothers: a claustrophobic concept, maybe; leaping reason and logic, maybe; bypassing all conventional representations of doomsday that've become the sudden fancy of the public, maybe; I'm drunk off my ass, _maybe_ - but what's one relationship if not a microcosm of most of humanity? These brothers struggle to understand why it was _them_, and believe me, I'm not entirely sure on that concept either. But then again, nobody really understands why certain things happen to certain people, and we're also dealing with beings for whom time has no meaning: they might as well have looked into the future and the past, tweaked an event or two here and there, and decided that these two brothers were perfectly placed in history to begin their prelude to the Apocalypse with.

Sounds like an excuse for a low-budget flick with big ambitions, sure. Maybe, but the end of the world can be defined in so many different ways - from spectacular disasters sweeping across the face of the planet to a quieter sort of deterioration of civilisation, from the core and spreading out toward the edges - ultimately the final moment is but one last, no-holds-barred showdown between good and evil, and if that first happens on an intensely personal level, so what?

Talking about 'good' and 'evil', here's where the story gets even more complicated. Like I said, as a writer, you _know_ your characters; I've practically lived their lives in my head, and I can _see_ all of their perspectives on the same situation, even if their motivations aren't always clear. The more you know their minds, the more you realise that 'good' and 'evil' are _never_ easily defined.

These two brothers? One is righteous, the other is a sinner; one works for Hell and the other for Heaven; one is barely human, and the other is barely alive. Even I don't know which of these go for which brother - all of them, or none of them, could apply to either, or both. It's complicated, it's frustrating, it's _human_.

The only thing they've got left, then, is what makes them brothers, right? Family, love. It's tougher when each is convinced the other is on the wrong side, but eventually it is that compulsion to _love_ that leads to the compulsion to understand, and _that_ - well, that won't exactly lead to wildflower meadows and unicorns, but some sort of peace.

... And, perhaps, finally, a happy ending to the story.


	9. Chapter 7

_**Seven**_

_Over the next few decades, you learn a lot about Hell._

_One of the first things that you learn is that it's always what you want it to be, yet never quite. It's every single dream of freedom that you've ever wanted, but know will never get: visions of verdant meadows and sunshine segueing into wastelands soaked in blood and sweat and horror; sweet music distorting into screams of anguish; fond memories and loved ones descending into pits of never-ending torture where they are flayed and torn and burned and shredded while they scream your name plaintively._

_It's this longing that's a deeper pain than anything merely physical. Hell's secret is in dangling your deepest desires within arm's reach, before snatching them away at the last moment. And contaminate them. Violate._

_Ruby tells you that this is unusual; that you shouldn't know this before a baptisation in blood and torture yourself; that the fact that you retain no conscious human memories means that it is not as great a torture as it can be. _Even here_, she says_, you cannot be completely be one or the other. Even here, you cannot fully transform into a demon. Always stuck in the middle, aren't you, Sammy?

_You don't bother responding to her; you don't tell her that you __**did**__ undergo a baptisation in blood, that Hell has left its marks of ownership in the form of scabbed-over holes in your palms and feet. You know that her words are but another riddle she wants you to ponder (_question, Sammy, keep questioning_) and any answer will lead to more of her mocking instruction. You let her keep talking to you, let her voice keep trickling across your subconscious, because you cannot stop __**watching**__._

_As you keep walking, Hell reveals more of itself to you: you seem to step into vision after vision, populated by people you are sure you must've known in some other life._

_A pleasant suburban home, a happy family with two little boys which is then consumed by fire: the mother dying as she is cut open and pinned to the ceiling above her child's crib, the older boy burning alive while the father draws a knife across the throat of his infant son, murmuring _before it's too late _in an insane litany before he is consumed, too._

_A dark motel room, crawling with disuse and neglect; a young boy being eviscerated by shapeless shadow-monsters, blood gurgling in his throat as he tries to scream, while his brother watches and laughs._

_A big library, university logos emblazoned on the walls dripping with blood; intestines hanging from high shelves like gnarled ropes, half-beheaded corpses fallen over open books, vast pools of blood cooling in the pleasant air-conditioning; and in the middle of it all, a tall young man with long hair stained red, standing like a demon king after a victorious conquest, holding a woman with wavy blonde hair up with one hand, crushing her neck even as she glares at him with all the desperate loathing she can muster._

_Another motel room, brightly-lit this time; the same tall man, his eyes now gleaming a reptilian yellow, holding a shorter man against a wall, wrapping his hands around his neck and squeezing with unnatural power even as the other's struggles slowly begin to cease._

_And - _

_The corrugated red plains return, and tears pool in your eyes._

_"What're you crying about," Ruby says quietly. "You don't even remember your family."_

Family. _You don't remember them, yes, but the sight of so much suffering, blood and death... "Which one is real?" you ask hoarsely. "Which one really happened?"_

_"All of them." Ruby shrugs. "None of them. Does it really matter?"_

_You suppose not (_you're dead_), but the tears don't __**stop**__. A part of you is surprised you even have the capacity to grieve, but that mess of emotion within you - those vestiges of the person you once were - swell into a tide that brings you to your knees, your shoulders shaking with unchecked sobs. You know - __**know**__ - those scenes should be different _(you know the tall murderer is you) _- should be (_brother-why_) lighter, softer (_you're gonna be okay_), happier (_It's-Sam-driver-music-cakehole_)._

_Your head dips to the ground, forehead resting against the hot soil, arms tucked against your belly. Maybe this is why you're here, to atone for those unspeakable sins. Maybe the absence of memory is a punishment in itself - stripping you of __**yourself**__, leaving you without justification or memory to truly honour the ones you grieve for._

_Ruby's voice weaves through your sobs, husky and soothing. "It's over, Sammy. You've passed."_

_You don't want to look up; you don't want to ask her what she means; you don't want to do anything now than stay here and let your confusion and terror soak into the ground with your tears. However, invisible hands reach under your chin and lift your head up, forcing you to look. _

_Hell has changed one more time._

_No more is it empty plains stretching as far as the eye can see; now enormous cliffs of crumbling brown rock rise jaggedly into the sky, dotted with what seems like millions of caves: black maws from which flash multi-coloured ribbons of fire. The sky is a dull grey, hanging with clouds - heavy not with the promise of a storm, but ancient like coils of never-dissipating smoke. An endless stream of black figures move across the cliff faces like insects; the air is heavy and rancid and filled with the agonised sounds of unnatural creatures._

_You drink in all of this slowly, your throat bobbing with yet-unshed tears. You sense rather than see Ruby approach, and stand next to you. "Watch closely," she says, and for the first time, her voice is neither mocking nor amused, but low and hoarse. "These... are your people."_

_You look closer at what you'd first thought to be insects, and realise the truth is far, far worse._

_These... creatures are vaguely humanoid, with long spindly legs and arms attached to torsos of a black so dark it seems to absorb light. The limbs end in amorphous, constantly undulating shapes that seem to mould to the objects that they grasp. And their heads... this is where your words dry up, because there aren't any in your vocabulary to truly describe the terrible mish-mash that is their faces - half-bird, half-animal, set in a disconcertingly __**human**__ framework. _

Hell, Hell, this is Hell.

_The terror and grief infuses strength into your limbs; you climb to your feet, shaking, although you are unwilling to turn and meet Ruby's eyes (_what if she's one of those creatures? what if you look at her and get absorbed into the black hole that is her very being?_)_

_"This is not -" you force out. "I'm not - one of them. I don't belong here. I need to get -"_

_"That's where you're wrong, Sammy," Ruby says softly. "This is Hell, and you just got a free pass into the inner circle." You feel her hand take your elbow and you shudder, remembering the slimy masses that substitute for hands in __**them**__. "You're __**not**__ one of them, but you do belong here. You're their saviour._

_"This, then, is your destiny, Sam Winchester."_

_"No!" You break free and run blindly in the opposite direction, breath coming out of you in short, painful gasps. Before you can get very far, however, one of the black creatures appear before you, one thin arm extending toward your face._

_You try to twist away, but black tendrils with a reach farther than you could've imagined shoot up your nostrils, your ears, your eyes; the world explodes in a spectacular fireworks display before you finally sink into darkness.

* * *

_

"You know," she said, crossing her arms over her chest, "we kinda live our lives pre-empting the moves of people like you."

Bobby sighed at the elaborate ritual he'd set up in his basement - he'd barely started, and how the hell had this demon hussy known he was going to summon her, anyway? - and looked up at her. "Ruby."

She smirked, flipped back her hair - a new body, Bobby noted, a pretty young thing, blonde and petite. "None other." She settled herself on a nearby upturned box. "Salt lines cleared, no pesky devil's traps on every available space - you're desperate, aren't you?" She laughed. "What do you want to know?"

Bobby's hand closed over the flask of holy water in his jeans pocket. "How did you know I was gonna call you? Are you - are demons watching us?"

Ruby tilted her head and smiled. "Maybe, maybe not. Next?"

"Where's Sam?"

Her smile didn't falter. "With his brother, obviously. Hasn't Dean told you that yet?"

_Well, __**there's**__ a shocker_. Bobby knew he would be wasting time if he tried to process the information (_oh god, John, you weren't wrong_); he merely squared his shoulders, set his lips, and spoke. "And why is he back?"

"Because he's the final seal, of course."

Bobby wasn't entirely sure, even much later, how he was planning to react to that - he'd barely opened his mouth (to speak, because damn if he was going to stand around demons with his jaw open like a gormless fool) when a bright light filled the room, blinding enough that he instinctively hunched and threw an arm over his eyes.

When the light faded and he could open his eyes, he saw Castiel holding Ruby against the wall with one extended hand, palm inches from her neck.

For one second, Bobby closed his eyes and sighed. He'd been expecting complications, but, really...

_I'm getting too old for this shit_.

"Oh, look," Ruby said flippantly. "It's the angel mafia, come to silence me."

Castiel's outstretched hand closed into a fist, and Ruby began to squirm, her hands ineffectually flapping against her neck. "Silence you, indeed," Castiel said. "Silence your lies and perversions, hell-spawn."

His fist unfurled; he closed his eyes and began to chant. Orange-yellow light pulsed from behind Ruby's eyes and her open mouth, her body arching and jerking against the wall. Bobby was struck by the sheer power that emanated from the angel; so much so that ever-brightening light limned his mortal body, as if the essence of the angel was creeping out of every pore of the vessel that was too inadequate to truly rein him in.

For all that Castiel postured to Dean, the angel was truly a warrior, conditioned over millennia to fight Heaven's battles.

Bobby eased himself toward where he'd stashed his backup - and, really, the way his knees were creaking, he thought they could hear him over the sounds of Ruby's death-throes - and ran a quick check over the bottles of holy water, salt canisters, blessed iron charms, goofer dust, the readily-arranged paraphernalia associated with exorcisms from three different faiths; in addition, the Panic Room was also only a few steps away, with its inch-thick walls of iron saturated with every means of protection against the supernatural he could think of. After a consistent demonic no-show for over two years, he hadn't been sure of what he'd attract with his ritual; Bobby hadn't lived a hunter's life for so long without learning to be extremely paranoid, and extremely resourceful.

"What - what are you _doing_?"

He was distracted by the bewildered fury in Castiel's voice - he looked up to see Ruby on her feet again, the light leaking from her eyes and mouth dimming as she chanted some litany of her own, words coming out in great, shuddering gasps. Castiel lowered his arm and took a step back. "What -?"

Without warning, Ruby finished her chant and launched herself at Castiel. Demon met angel, and both of them met the floor, Castiel's head cracking against the cement. She drew a knife from her belt and cocked the blade with a flick of her wrist, moving to slash it across his throat. Castiel caught her hand just before the knife met his vessel's skin, and caught her other hand before it could try to loosen his grip. "How did you do that?" he growled.

"I'm here to fulfill a greater purpose, just like you," Ruby said, breathing hard. "And I happen to have just a few more weapons in my arsenal."

"You and I are _nothing_ alike," Castiel said, and with one mighty heave, threw her off him.

Castiel got to his feet, and Ruby recovered immediately. She held her knife warily in front of her, and it was an ordinary knife, Bobby noted, and not the demon-killing one with the fancy engravings she'd given Dean -

"You listening, Bobby?" Ruby said suddenly. "Sam and Dean are together, and Sam's the final seal! Sam -" Castiel threw out his arm again, and Ruby slammed against the wall, the rest of her words abruptly cut off. "Stop peddling your lies," Castiel said with slow, cold fury.

Ruby, struggling, looked past Castiel and straight at Bobby. "And so it is written," she ground out, "that the final seal shall be the destruction of the greatest adversary to Lucifer's rising!"

Bobby froze. _That... doesn't make any sense_. This whole shindig had taken on a frighteningly bizarre turn and he needed to - he needed to call Dean, and then, _then_ - check up with a few contacts (_Rufus Joshua oh Jim I wish you were still alive_), maybe hit a few more books (_plan research oh god Sam WHAT - _)

"_Lies_!" Castiel roared, and swept one arm in Bobby's direction. He flew backwards and in through the open doors of the Panic Room, smacking painfully against the opposite wall. He slid to the ground, and through the flaring pain in his back and his blurring vision, Bobby saw the doors close and heard the noisy _clang_ of the bolts sliding into place. _No... not in my goddamn... house, dammit!_

Ignoring the protests of his battered body, Bobby scrambled to his feet and staggered to the door, pounding his fist against the metal. "Hey... _Hey_!"

His cries quietened when he heard a distinctive thump against the door on the other side, and it rattled. He placed his ear against the door, wincing a little at the cold, and tried to be quiet and listen, although his back and knees were killing him and his whole body was trembling, his heart pounding madly against his ribs. There were more sounds of a right royal skirmish, grunts and swearing (although that came only from Ruby), thumps and flatter sounds of skin against skin, sounds like meat slapped against a butcher's table.

Finally, the cacophony ended with a single, prolonged female scream.

A few seconds later, the bolts slowly slid out, and the door creaked open. Castiel looked at Bobby, in his eyes that perennially implacable expression, despite the blood that matted his hair, coated the sides of his face, stained the lapels of his trenchcoat. A sudden horror took hold of Bobby then: icy tendrils of fear pushing from his belly into his brain, a kind of fear he hadn't felt since he had looked from Dean's eviscerated corpse into Sam's red-rimmed eyes, eyes filled with quiet, maniacal desperation. "Get out of my house," he snapped.

Castiel didn't move. "You have to understand -"

"_Get out of my house_!" Bobby screamed, hyper-aware of his increased heartbeat, a vein pulsing in his forehead.

A few seconds of silence. Then:

"Sam needs to die, and Dean has to kill him," Castiel said quietly, and disappeared.

Bobby slumped to a sitting position on the bare, chill floor, wiping cold sweat off his brow with trembling hands.

* * *

Sometimes, when the stress and loneliness and implacable fear of a life lived as a city housewife got to her, Millie would close her eyes and think of her childhood home in the countryside of Idaho, the green-brown-red earth and the snow-capped hills in the background, open to a vast sky that often seemed close enough that only if she jumped high enough, she could touch the clouds. Cool breeze playing with her hair, the smell of springtime rain. The sweet innocence of a quiet, sheltered life (if life could be _sheltered_ at all - but, oh! she had _had_ one, one as beautiful and transient as the cool raindrops that would soak into her hair).

In those days, when her world revolved around the next day's assignments and if the cute boy in her Spanish class would ask her to the school dance, horror struck her life, and tore it asunder.

She remembered the day very clearly - she'd had basketball practice that day, and she'd just been elected captain of the team. She'd come home late and tired and elated, throwing her bag into the living room and marching into the kitchen, calling for her mother. However, only her brother had been there, the same brother who was supposed to have been two states away with his wife and two infant children.

"Steve?" she'd said, pleasantly surprised. "What are you doing here?" She looked around the empty kitchen. "And where's Mom?"

He didn't reply immediately, his face turned slightly away from her. His profile was but a shadow in the slanting evening light pouring in through the windows, and she felt a sudden urge to pinch his big, hooked nose and giggle as he would chase her around the house, as she had as a little girl. Come on, Stevie. Turn around, get ticked off, _say something_.

He finally turned around, and smiled at her. "Hey, Millie." He'd been turning something over in his hands, and Millie barely held in a gasp when she saw it to be a long knife (_Mom's favourite butcher's knife_), crusted with dried blood. "Mom's upstairs," he continued. "But she's a little... _pre-occupied_ now, I'm afraid."

An involuntary step, hand reaching for the kitchen door. "Steve?" in a quavering voice despite herself.

"Donna and the kids are in the car," Steve said. "They're pretty busy, too." He stood up, and his grin stretched, distorting his face into some grotesque caricature that was _not her brother not her brother not her BROTHER - _

"Steve, what...?" Her eyes dropped to that wicked-looking knife again, and when she looked up, his eyes had turned completely black.

She opened her mouth to scream, to run, to do _something_, when he slipped behind her with a speed faster than she would've thought possible, slapped a large hand over her mouth and held the knife to her neck, its edge resting lightly against her skin. Her hands reached up to struggle, but when the knife-edge dug deep enough to draw blood, she stopped. Moisture dripped in great rolling beads off Steve's hand, and it took her a moment to realise that those were her tears. "Please," she whispered against his palm.

"Quiet, now," Steve whispered into her ear. His hot breath carried a waft of something unspeakable with it; something like month-old farm refuse, revoltingly overpowering. "You really don't want to become busy either, do you?"

She stood still, the tears now dripping off the edge of the knife and to the floor.

_I have to - have to -_ _oh god, I have to __**do **__something - _

"Tell you what," Steve said pleasantly. "I like you, Millie. I'll make this quick for you. Well," he added, "quick_er_ than the others, anyway." She could hear his smile in his voice, and tried not to shudder remembering that horrible, monstrous grin. "Wouldn't want to miss out on _all_ the fun." She felt the pressure of the knife give and then finally disappear; wasting no time, she bit on one of the fingers of the hand covering her mouth. As Steve gave a startled cry and let go of her altogether, she whirled around and ran for the door. Maybe if she could just _get out_ _get out get out of this nightmare_ she could find somebody (_anybody_), get some help, and -

Abruptly, she ran into (_him_) just at the kitchen entrance (_just as freedom beckoned_).

The (_man_) grabbed her shoulders, holding on effortlessly even as she tried to wriggle free, looking into her wide, fearful eyes with eyes that gleamed a sick, _sick_ yellow. She screamed now, screamed and struggled until her throat ached from both pain and terror.

And (_he_) just held on, smiling.

Before long she realised her screaming was achieving nothing; nobody came to her aid, and all her wriggling and scratching and biting didn't elicit so much as a wince from (_him_). She sagged in (_his_) grip, spent and numb with terror. "There, now," (_he_) said, voice rich and rolling and amused. "Does that make you feel all better? There's something to be said about expressing yourself, I suppose." She was turned around to face Steve again, Steve who stood there with knife in hand, an inexplicably repentant look on his face. A sudden, insane urge to giggle took hold of her: he looked exactly like that time when as a teenager he'd gotten caught by Dad stealing fruits from Mrs Greenbaum's orchard.

The (_man_) spoke. "Taking something of a coffee break, are we?"

Steve's gaze fell. His words came out in a rush. "Scott's vacationing. The little sucker's a tad too boring to keep tabs on _all _the time, and there was this young family coming along on the highway, and it was so hard to _resist_; it's been so _long _-"

"And therefore you indulged in an act of needless destruction and terror." Steve winced and opened his mouth, but the (_man_) stopped him by speaking again, light and casual with an undercurrent of building menace. "Don't get me wrong: I'm all for acts of needless destruction and terror - kind of part of the job description - but you? You were given a _job_. An important one at that. And you slacked off it like some two-bit high schooler playing hooky." (_He_) raised one hand.

Steve dropped the knife, raised his own hands as if in surrender. "Azazel, wait -"

The (_man_) snapped his fingers. "This conversation is over."

Steve's head snapped back, neck hyperextending unnaturally; his mouth opened in a scream and Millie screamed in bewildered terror of her own when copious amounts of black smoke erupted from between his jaws. His throat bobbed as if the smoke was coming from _within_ him, and how was that even _possible_ -

The smoke didn't dissipate immediately; it hovered, almost as if uncertain about where to go next, before it plunged into the floor and disappeared, as if sucked in by vaccum. Steve slumped to the floor, landing with a sick _thump_, and didn't move. Millie's ragged breathing filled the silence that followed.

"Ah, these dramas in the way of business: they're such a pain." The (_man_) let go of her and proceeded to sit where Steve had sat at the kitchen table. "But it's so hard to get trustworthy employees these days; these tiresome schoolmaster routines are getting more and more necessary." (_He_) smiled at her. "But really. I'm being so rude. Let's talk about _you_, Millie."

Millie shuddered at her name being spoken aloud. She backed up, hand groping for the kitchen door, and was not entirely surprised to find that it had somehow closed. "G-go to hell," she said, hoping her voice wasn't too shaky.

The (_man_) smirked. "Been there, done that, bought every last T shirt." (_He_) laced (_his_) fingers together, looked at her thoughtfully. "Despite everything, I'm feeling a little generous. What do you say, Millie," and here (_he_) leaned forward, his lips lifting in a near-predatory grin, "to me returning your family back - your parents, your poor brother here, _his_ family - all alive, all well, no pesky memories of what's just happened to ever haunt their dreams?"

Millie blinked. _Could (_he_)? Will (_he_)?_

"You'd be surprised at what I can do," (_he_) said smoothly. "And I _can_ bring them back; don't doubt it. _However_," (_he_) added, and here it was, Millie thought. Here's where (_he_)'s going to tear my throat out and drink my blood and claim that's what's going to give (_him_) the power to bring back the dead. "However, I have something to ask of you in return. As they say, you can't ever take business away from a businessman."

She lifted her shoulders, squared her jaw. _To hell with it_. "What?"

(_His_) smile widened. "Your child."

Mille couldn't help it; she nearly burst out laughing. Her _child_? Of all the ridiculous things she'd seen and heard -

"I'm not joking," the (_man_) said. "It's more important than you will ever realise, which, hey, good for you. _But_," (_he_) got up and took a few steps toward her; all traces of humour instantly vanished, "the day your first child turns six months old, I _will_ come to claim it." (_His_) face relaxed again. "So: what d'you say, huh? Decent enough bargain?"

_Bargain._ She was actually discussing the price of her family's _lives_. If things could get anymore terrifyingly surreal, her head would pop off and float into space (_maybe it already has_). But going along with this nightmare, was it really a good bargain? She wanted nothing more than to see her family again; she wanted nothing more than her frighteningly-limp brother to get up and wrap his strong arms around her, comforting, like he had the little worries and upsets of her childhood. And besides, to her sixteen year old self, the concepts of 'marriage' and/or 'children' seemed so remote as to belong to a different universe; at that point, selling the possibility of her having any children at all, years and _years_ into the future seemed more than reasonable if she could get things to being as they were.

And so there was only the slightest hesitation in her voice when she said: "Yes."

She got the barest glimpse of (_his_) grin before (_he_) held her face in both (_his_) hands in a near-crushing grip, and pressed (_his_) lips against hers. She'd barely begun to get over the surprise and fight back, when they were kissing deeply, (_his_) tongue pushing forcefully into her mouth, exploring. When (_he_) finally broke away, when she'd regained her breath and her bearings, (_he_)'d disappeared, and she was left alone in the kitchen with a brother who was slowly starting to stir.

It turned out that the (_man_) had been right: apart from the initial disorientation, nobody really remembered anything; ready explanations were come up with for why her brother was home; the bloody knife had disappeared; her whole family was whole and healthy - so much so that she'd often wondered if the whole thing had been an illusion, after all. But that hadn't stopped the tears, the endless nightmares - so many nights where she would wake, screaming, from gory visions of her brother slashing her throat, his hands slipping in her blood, that horrible grin etched permanently on his face while thick smoke wafted through his teeth, his eyes, his ears...

Eventually, even those faded away. And when she met Robert Carlisle, and when her world had taken on a wondrous new meaning the night Timmy was born, _that day_ had become nothing more than the dream of a memory, hazing into obscurity.

But now -

Only _now_, ten years after _that day_, did Millie truly understand what she'd paid.

She clutched a sleeping Timmy to her chest as Dean carried her bags into the house, the boy who'd driven them close on his heels. The owner of the house was gracious enough; she introduced herself as Grace Matheson, and the tall man with her, Joshua Peters. There were several significant glances exchanged - mostly those of hostility - when the boy crossed the threshold (he merely rolled his eyes and muttered something about "useless salt lines and devil's traps", and normally that shouldn't make any sense, but Millie was past caring).

She was shown a room and asked - again, most graciously - to wait and freshen up a bit, she would certainly be gotten back to and have everything explained, and, oh, would she like some lemon tea and biscuits? No thank you, just some hot water. It was time to feed Timmy soon.

She laid him carefully on the blankets and pulled out his bottle. It occurred to her suddenly just how casually she was going about the old routine when (_Rob was dead and Timmy was - _) her whole world had gone for a sudden tailspin. That wave of hysteria lapped at the edges of her sanity again - but she needed to keep it together; she needed to figure her way through what was going on, at least for her son's sake.

Millie sighed and closed her eyes, feeling the breeze in her hair, springtime rain on her face, and the taste of blood and sulphur in her mouth.


End file.
